Between The World And Me Analysis

The diction of the book is colloquial, which gives the text a tone that suggests the seriousness of Coates’s message as well at the importance of it being received by the audience. His conveyance of the dire situation African Americans face isn’t veiled in scholarly language. It’s clear and concise and as such the text doesn’t feel journalistic or a mere retelling of facts and figures. The narrative is empirical, relating authority from a place of authenticity, as Coates is African American, did grow up on the impoverished streets of Baltimore, and had experienced violence both first and second hand, whether it was

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 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.

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.

Ta-Nehisi Coates had one clear purpose in writing this novel, Between the World and Me: to teach his son what it means to be a black man. He shows him the fear that young black men feel, the history of slavery and black oppression, as well as his own personal experiences with being influenced by Malcolm X. He also shares with him the joy he feels about getting an education and learning of more ways to be black. He also shared with him the story of Prince Jones’ murder and how his mother’s pride in her son after his death was so important. In this novel, Coates uses the archetype of the journey and the teacher to further his message and bring life to his work.

In Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me, many different views of the world are addressed the main view his own the view of the world from a black man in America’s perspective. His book also explains how his perspective of the world changes based on experiences that have helped shape him. My main takeaway from the book is to never stop learning and broaden your view of the world.

Coates explains in detail how angry it makes him to know his race is worthless in a society were the dominant ones will always make them feel worthless. The labels “black” and “white” hold a sense of worth towards an individual which classifies them as powerless or powerful. Inequality will remain an issue due to those who seem careless for change. Change as a whole is impossible to occur when only a few are fighting for equality, which is why Coates shows no hope for the black community throughout his writing. What makes Coates writing unique is the fact that everything he brings up is related to his own experience living in the ghetto, having to struggle, and trying to survive the inequalities he is faced with day to day. (word

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

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

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.

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’

The most effective message in the novel manages what Coates calls the "fantasy." The "fantasy" is the conviction that white individuals have encompassing our reality. They trust that they are completely white and are some caught in their own particular reality, that they don't understand the defects our reality. As a white subject they don't need to manage separation, racial profiling and other burdens that

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.

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

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.