Analysis Of Between The World And Me By Ta-Nehisi Coates

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.

Coates provides readers with a lesson in American history and explains to his son that race is not reality, but that “Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world” (Coates 2015; 7) He brings the reader inside the America in which he lives. He argues that “America’s problem is not its betrayal of ‘government of the people,’ but the means by which ‘the people’ acquired their names,” meaning that America has only ever represented and supported white people, that America was founded on a system of racial bias (6). He draws attention to the struggles that peoples of color, especially black people, have faced. Those struggles generate fear, which is one of the main ideas in the

“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.

Coates reveals that he understands the reality of black men in America. “Ethos is a rhetorical device through the author reveals his or her creditability to discuss the topic at hand.” (Kemp13). Coates shows throughout part one that he truly understand what it is like to live as a black man in America today. “ To be black in Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease.” (Coates 17). Coates displays that growing up black in Baltimore was a true challenge due to the racism, even before all the violence was added. Coates builds his credibility by giving the

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

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 is a letter by Ta-Nehisi Coates to his fifteen-year-old son Samori. Coates writes about his life growing up in the ghettos of Baltimore, which he learns how to survive the streets. His father was very strict and his mother wouldn’t let him go, but Coates now realizes that black parents (in general) are often like that because they do not want lose their children. For Ta-Nehisi Coates, growing up black in Baltimore would mean growing up poor. As a young man, Coates saw school as a useless part of life, though he pursued his studies in order to attend Howard University. At Howard University he went through an enlightenment as he saw the diversity of black people at Howard, and he studied black writers and history.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s persona in Between the World and Me is a Social Justice warrior regarded through the eyes of a concerned parent. To address the issues he has experienced to other ethnicities and his son. Throughout the essay, Coates slowly shifts his views on the world due to new events and achieved realization through college and the birth of his son. Events he experienced in the diversity of his campus and real world situations raising a child. After meeting new girls and people on the campus at Howard University, he comes to the realization of the differences in humans.

Coates describes his early forms of education in grades k-12 and the ways in which it shaped his views of the black body. This period of education was a time in which Coates viewed the black body as powerless based on the difficult situation he was living. This early educational experience in Coats’s life was extremely conflicting due to the fact that the

“Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students.” (Steven Hsieh, 2014) Until now, we are still finding unequal treatment from school in American Society from different aspects, such as school discipline, early learning, college readiness and teacher equity. However, education is more than learning from books. Education enables individuals potential to utilize human mind and open doors of opportunities to obtain knowledge. But the US educational system doesn’t serve the majority of children properly and gaps remain between white and black students. What’s more, nowadays, a lot of schools only treat education as a curriculum and test scores; ignoring the stimulus of curiosity. Therefore, “Between the World and Me” is a book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who weaves his own personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. In this book, Coates writes about education and pleasures of his own educational experience in Howard University. Although bad education hides the truth and restricts students’ ideas, education also contains pleasures, which broaden people’s mind, help people build their own thoughts, and prevent people from prison. As a result, there are more pleasures in American education that positively impact on black body than dangers.

The American Dream is problematic both because of how what it stands for and what it creates. It was built and is maintained on the oppression of black people. It also creates blindness and ignorance to racial divides in this country among the people living in it (including black people). My third take-away is that the police everyone seems to have a problem with in this country reflect the people in it. Coates writes that the body cameras and police reform people are advocating for only distances them from the police when in fact, the police are only acting on the fears of those living in the

In the book, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, he focused on the fear young black boys have growing up in America today. Along with discussing how it makes him feel about the Society he lives in. He emphasized the effectiveness of police in America overall and uses reference to slavery. Which reminds me of Goffman premises of symbolic interactions. How individuals in society just adopt to their surroundings. Although just because a person adapts, their inner thoughts and feelings of growing up afraid or even being one to see torture or detainment for no reason but knowing you have no power to change what seems to be a cycle. Also Pierre Bourdieu concepts of, “ social space and Genesis of groups” relates to Coates focus because he argues that, “ individuals can be defined by their position in the space they are involved in”. For example, when Coates the mistreatment done on young black boys by police officers, whom are suppose to be their as a protector of the citizens but continues to misuse their intended purpose within the position.

Along with the main message, I learned a few things while reading this book which I will talk some more about. The three main things that I took away from reading this book is that; the justice system was not made for us even though we have to fully participate in it, whether we realize it or not we as black people have to constantly fear what can happen to our bodies at any given moment and that the American dream is not one for us. The parts when Coates talks about the justice system in America and how it rarely rules in our favor stuck with me so much because it is so relevant to everything that is happening today.

After reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, I felt that the most powerful message in the book was Coates’ assertion that African Americans are striving for the “Dream” which is in fact unreachable. The “Dream” is supposed to be the desire of people to live in a big house with a white picket fence and a big yard, however because it was built on the backs of black people, literally, it is not something that is a realistic goal or a realistic dream. Coates wants his son to realize that America has been built on the marginalization of black people and other minorities and that because of this, it is not a place which will allow races that white people have deemed as “lesser” to prosper. The first major takeaway that I got from reading

Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully we shall overcome.” Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Coates writes a letter to his son explaining what his life was like growing up in America as an African American man, and he also tries to give his son some moral advice on how to take charge of living as a man in a black body. Spike Lee directs a film on Malcolm X, who was a black activist and a leader of the struggle for black freedom. Both the book and film discuss slavery, civil rights, and police brutality. Coates and Malcolm X advocate that the malicious history of slavery has contributed to the shaping of modern day racism in America.