Between The World And Me Analysis

Between the World and Me has been called a book about race, but the author argues that race itself is a flawed, if anything, nothing more than a pretext for racism. Early in the book he writes, “Race, is the child of racism, not the father.” The idea of race has been so important in the history of America and in the self-identification of its people and racial designations have literally marked the difference between life and death in some instances. How does discrediting the idea of race as an immutable, unchangeable fact changes the way we look at our history? Ourselves? In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and the current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the

The choice of form for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel Between the World and Me is very interesting and powerful. Coates uses the form of a letter to his son to tell his story. This gives the author a chance to express the personal struggles he and other people of color were dealing with during his coming-of-age. While many Autobiographies are written in a first-person style with an almost essay-like format, Coates strays away from tradition and offers an exciting take on this genre and his life.

Ta- Nehisi Coates between the world and me was my personal choice for the novel for my final paper because of the way it boldly and freely explores the thought of what it is like to black in America and how that thought relates to the concept Coates calls the “dream”. Coates uses the lens of the American dream to show how people who believe in it are only dreamers and that leads him to believe that white supremacy is the one reality in America and he uses his experiences as an African American child growing up all the way to having a son of his own. Writing the book to his fifteen year old son Coates sums up the general consensus of his thoughts by saying “I tell you now that the question of how one should live within a black body, within a country lost in the dream, is the question of my life, is the question of my life the pursuit of this question, I have found, ultimately answers itself.”(pg12) In this Coates lays out the most critical sentence to

The recently awarded 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, has stirred quite some debate over the author himself and the issue on race in America. He is harsh and direct when it comes to commenting on the political policies in America or even the president. Much of Ta-Nehisi Coates’s works are affected by his life living in America as a black person. The violent and “fearsome” life he has lived became the only form of life he is acquainted to. As a result, he strongly believes that white supremacy dominates, a condition which will never cease to be. Hope – being a central element to the black moment – is absent in his projections; this hopelessness in Coates’s works is a center of discussion to the critics. There exist strong supporters of Coates who applauds him for his truthfulness and there are some who view him as a pessimist and a cynic. All the while, Coates defends himself by saying that he is simply a realist who refuses to hide behind the blind naivete like the rest.

Ta-Nehisi Coates text Between The World and Me, which is posted as a letter to his son seeks to prepare him to live in a society were according to Coates blacks are not treated fairly. He starts by mentioning the fear of the black community in America, and the violence occurring. Coates tone is not very optimistic throughout his writing. He refers to “between the world and me” as a phrase that describes whites attitude towards blacks and how the white community maintained themselves as the ruling class, by looking down at non-white individuals. Many readers might view Coates as a pessimistic individual and may not concur with his ideology towards life and religion, however the truth he speaks about is not sugar coated it is straight to the point just as he is seeing it, which makes his writing interesting to read.

The book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a poignant reminder that the battle for equality is still ongoing for African Americans, and that the average black reality is rife with perils, which could easily lead to the destruction of life or liberty. In the wake of the recent string of deaths involving unarmed African American citizens by the hands of local law enforcement, Coates presents his narrative in the style of a letter to his son. Writing in the form of a letter offers a deeper sense of intimacy both with its perceived intended subject (Coates’s son) and the reader. The intimacy expressed through this narrative style denotes Coates’s own intense emotions to the reader regarding race in America. In this way, Coates offers a view that is authentic, humanistic, and emotionally charged contrary to just being an omniscient narrator.

Coates has the art of writing mastered. Throughout Between the World and Me, Coates used words like "disembody" and "black body" to force his message that white supremacy does in fact exist and it is time for the world to stop looking the other way. He does not show this in a pleading way. Instead, he uses powerful diction, as well as the depth of his personal experiences making the reader truly try to imagine oneself in that exact position to cause the audience to want change. Perhaps two of the most apparent instances, and best parts of his work, were when another African American boy pointed a gun at a younger boy in his adolescent years, and, also, when he explained how prejudiced it was that the officer that tracked down and killed Prince Jones was not charged because the cop was white. This message Coates was attempting to get across was in accordance with an article out of Social Problems: Readings that argued violence is not in fact random, but actually targets African Americans (Silver). He wrote from his heart which shows how real and dangerous the issues of black vs white are.

How does Coates plan on going against intolerance and ignorance? He has a reason and enough ambition to answer both questions. Between the World and Me is a presented in the form of a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son and readers the story of his own awakening to the truth about history and race through a series of experiences. His captivation in nationalist mythology as a child; engagement with history, poetry, and love at Howard University; his travels to Civil War battlefields and to the South Side of Chicago; a journey to France that reorients his sense of the world; and pilgrimages to the homes of mothers whose children's lives have been taken. Together, these stories map a compelling path toward deliverance from suffering. This is a journey from fear

In the Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses to his son, what it is like being black in the United States. He explains what race is in America and how it shapes us as a country. He examines both personal and historic events to explain to his son what it is like to be black. Coates offers no answer to any of the problems, but he provides his son with his own experience and thoughts. Coates teaches many different lessons to his son, but he puts extreme emphasis on the fact that despite the black body is fragile, the black mind is not.

The book Between the World and Me was written by Ta-Nehisi Coates in 2015. The book takes the format of a letter addressed to the writer’s teenage son, where he continually addresses the subject of African Americans in the society (4). Looking at the work from a more critical perspective, Coates work seems to have been inspired by the work of Baldwin of 1963 The Fire Next Time, where he spoke of white supremacy, and how possible it was to overcome. For Coates, white supremacy is a vice that his son, rather the reader, should accustom to, as it is an indestructible force. Walking through the periods of slavery, the author informs his son of

Harsh stares and young blood draining out of an innocent or guilty body is what we hear and see in America. People have a side of nature of judgment, considerably known as racism. Ethnic minorities suffer racism in their lifetime, relating to Ta-Nehisi Coates memoir “Between the world and me” is an understanding of ineffectively influencing personal experiences, stereotypes, and ignorance towards people who face the issue of racism in reality like myself as a latina college student. As for Coates, he is an African American who lived in west Baltimore and attended Howard University in Washington D.C and now lives in New York. He is an author who has won awards such as the National Magazine award, Hillman prize for opinion and analysis journalism, and George Polk award. A person like Coates starts to understand what’s happening then and now in the world, therefore a better view of a memoir about an issue and a dream is an explanation of what everyone sees in the news or what revolves around us.

Even if the Jim Crow Laws were abolished there was still plenty of racism that was around. Death is seemed to be throughout the whole book as well, something else combines with this theme and that is the lies that were told to cover up the murders of the innocent, “I knew that they’d shot Gary Hopkins and said he’d gone for an officer’s gun” (Coates 75). Coates says that he knows that the officers had shot Hopkins and they intentionally lied to get them out of trouble. Since Coates is so assured that the officers had done this it is a powerful tool. The reader can think about Coates in whatever way they wish for this. In the text there are also a lot of things that stand out to a reader who has just read the book for the first time. One example of this is the people that Coates decides to talk about and talk to. He talks mostly about people who have been in his life. One person mentioned earlier would be Dr. Mable Jones. Coates could have talked to anybody who was in or around the event of the murder, but he chose Prince’s Mother. Hearing how the death affected her stands out to the reader and can make them see the pain it can cause, not only her, but other victims’

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates acclaimed letter to his teenage son, Samori, about what it means to be a black person in America. It deals with the personal issues, such as growing up in Baltimore and his cultivation of an intellectual and political consciousness at Howard University in the 1990s, and the historical, as seen in his discussion of the ways in which the black body has always been destination to destruction. Written in a bold, immediate, and at times passionate and angry voice, Coates places contemporary events like the killings of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin in this larger narrative of black struggle. One of his main themes is the "Dream" the world in which people who call themselves white inhabit and the one they do not want black bodies within. The Dream is alluring but false.

Coates spent his childhood years in a poor Baltimore public school, a system that “mostly meant always packing an extra number 2 pencil and working quietly” (Coates 25). He grew up believing that “The world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls” (Coates 25). School was not to him a place of education but rather an institution whose purpose was to train the students to obey and conform. “Algebra, Biology, and english were not subjects so much as opportunities to better discipline the body” (Coates 25).

“Between the World and Me”, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is a letter written to his son about what it means to be black and how tough it is to be a part of this race in the United States of America. In this book, Coates talks about his life in the black community, starting from childhood memories all the way to present day. Coates also tries sends a message, which is that his son should not lower his guard and be completely confident about who he is, instead he should be afraid about what the world is capable of doing to a black man. In this work, Coates disagrees on what it means to be black or white in America.