Themes In Ta-Nehisi CoatsBetween The World And Me

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.

My research for this week began to shift after a conversation with a literary scholar on James Baldwin. After reading The Fire Next Time, Notes from a Native Son and a few op-ed pieces on Baldwin, I was affirmed by this scholar that I was on the right track. I started our conversation with my overall premise of what Baldwin is trying to proclaim through his writings about Black Rage. He concurred that there is a strong connection and one worth exploring for further research when considering Baldwin’s relationship with his father. His challenge was to really develop the problem that Baldwin had with his father and how that was the impetus for his Black Rage.

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes the book Between the World and Me , originally a letter to his son about struggles and reality of being a black boy in America. Though Coates wrote this letter to his son, us too like him needed to grasp the depth and cost of losing our black body in country that was built to destroy it. Coates writes, “ Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body--it is heritage.” The most powerful message encountered in the Coates work Between the World and Me is the concept he narrows in on, which is losing our black body to the systems in which America created to destroy our bodies. Coates writes, “And you know, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with authority to destroy your body.” He describes it as if even in our innocence and humanity, we can still lose our body due to overreactions, misunderstandings, and immature policy of the country we live in. Coates questions himself with the pursuit of how to live in his black body knowing it could be destroyed at any moment. As he narrows in on this question, he realizes that it is unanswerable, but also rewards him with constant interrogation and girded him against the fear of living without his body. He says, “How do I live free in this black body? [...] The question is unanswerable, which is not to say futile.

The US is appealing in the eyes of other countries, and even ourselves, because of the “free” and “equal” characteristics we claim ourselves to have, such as: freedom of religion, freedom to own private property, and freedom of equal justice. However, in the eyes of an African America, Atlantic Monthly Journalist, we see that all of these freedoms find a loophole when it comes to the black community. In Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book Between the World and Me, he writes from a political, yet deeply personal standpoint to analyze today’s version of racism. Coates strays away from his usual journalist works to a more deeper and personal view. His book is devoted to his fifteen-year-old son, Samori, and provides him with guidance through the struggle of racism; all while letting Samori fend for himself. Coates’ lets his son know all this through history, and heritage; of his own and of America’s.

The purpose of this essay is to conduct a rhetorical analysis on Ta-Nehisi Coates Between the World and Me in regard to his usage of ethos, pathos, and logos. To unveil the ongoing affects that oppression continues to play on the African American community. Coates gives the readers ethos, by given a great introduction in chapter 1 of Between the World and Me. Coates’s letter to his teenage son, Samori, is about what it means to be a black person in America.

The novel starts with Coates addressing his son, Samori.He begins recounting a time when he was invited on a talk show and the host asked him what it meant to lose his body, looking for an explanation as to why Coates “felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence.” This turned out to be a very heavy, intense, and loaded question. Coates went on to explain to his son that America was built on the oppression, abuse, and exploitation of black people, of their bodies, which only intensifies the hypocrisy of the democratic foundation that America prides itself on. The recent murders of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Renisha McBride, and other black people and “the destroyers who were rarely held accountable” prove that the disregard and mutilation of black bodies is embedded in America’s DNA, and no one gives it a second thought. The American “dream” that is built on the purity and innocence of wanting happiness was only ever made plausible by the oppression of black people, who still struggle to achieve that dream because they were abused into a life of silence and fear. “The Dream rests on their backs, the bedding made from their bodies.” Coates went on to explain how this history of exploitation and the fear that’s been rooted into the lives of black people in America followed him throughout his schooling and on the streets of his neighborhood. The schools that he was sent to discouraged black children, rather than encouraging growth and facilitating a healthy learning environment. The streets were carefully orchestrated for self defense. You had to protect yourself, because you knew the law wouldn’t. At Howard University, “the Mecca”, the excitement of witnessing the diversity that flooded the

One of the most powerful messages encountered in the book is the importance of valuing yourself as a black being in a predominantly white and racially divided society. Coates explains how despite the fact that this nation has been built on the bones and bloodshed of blacks, the black body has lost almost all

“What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” (Coates). This powerful quote exemplifies the mistreatment of blacks in America as something that has been prevalent throughout our nation’s history and is still present in our contemporary world. Our national founding document promised that “All men are created equal”. As a nation we have never achieved the goal of equality largely because of the institution of slavery and its continuing repercussions on American society.

In part one of “Between the World and Me,” Coates gives constant examples on how the black community deals with the loss of their bodies and violence on the daily. He makes his argument by being brutally honest. He does not hold back when talking on the subject, making the reader feel somewhat convicted after reading. He uses the element of right timing throughout part one to show how intense racism still is.

“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.

Jensen (2005), argues how people have a discriminating inclination on how they see history. When history is being used to make an ostentatious gesture of the past, it becomes vital. Jensen, (2005) also refers to the “new White People’s Burden,” (p. 93) as they understand that they are the problem and need to face what reality really means, and act based on that understanding. In essence, Baldwin wanted to help his nephew survive as a black man in America, with a more sympathetic concept of racial tautness.

Baldwin opens his argument acknowledging the distortion of segregation for the segregationists. According to Baldwin, people who, since birth, have been taught to think a certain way towards the African American race. “The white South African or Mississippi sharecropper or Alabama sheriff has at bottom a system of reality which compels them really to believe when they face the Negro that this

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is an incredibly thought provoking book. Coates uses several different themes, structure, and the viewponts of his characters to portray a specific message and to teach the reader specifically about racial injustecise that occur in our country. This book is truly eye-opening and emotional. Through reading it, I have not only started to contemplate my own expereinces with race but I have also started to ruminate what is happening on a global level when it comes to minority groups.

Voraciously cascading through the boundless of veins of every civilization, regardless of moral prestige, is the irrefutable truth of the premise of physicality inextricably governing the core of civil conduct. Ironically, the complexity of one’s social stature derives from the simplest of circumstances, the banal affliction of biological chance. Impeccably accompanying the emergence of the American civil rights movement, James Baldwin’s compellingly astute dissertation The Fire Next Time, precisely construes the national calamity bestowed in the perpetual demoralization of African Americans. Perniciously, as Baldwin ordains, the simple increase in the concentration of melanin possesses decisive potential to condemn a populace, whose only “crime” is their lineage, to an existence inexhaustibly ridden with strife. Physically, melanin is replete with innocuous beauty. It’s morbid vilification, as Baldwin continuously professes, evolves from the insecurity and ignorance of whites, reprehensibly chartering the tragedy of the innocent; an afflictive phenomenon not unique to race.