Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Most of the books I read and review are fiction. But given the ubiquity of racial issues in the news, I recommend this National Book Award winner Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.  In this short and powerful book, Coates shares a letter he wrote to his 15-year old son, Samuri, about his experience of inhabiting a black body in America.

As incidents of violence toward black men multiply, Coates empathizes with what his son might feel. “I am writing you because you saw Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes; because you know now that Renisha McBride was shot for seeking help; that John Crawford was shot down for browsing in a department store.” In an illuminating section, he reflects back on the fear that gripped his parents and his fellow teenagers, “I think back on those boys now and all I see is fear of the bad old days when the Mississippi mob gathered round their grandfathers so that the branches of the black body might be torched, then cut away. The fear lived on in their practiced bop, their slouching denim, their big T-shirts, the calculated angle of the baseball caps, a catalog of behavior and garments enlisted to inspire the belief that these boys were in firm possession of everything they desired.”  

America struggles to overcome discrimination through legislation, adjudication, and cultural changes. However, I believe that until the psychological scars of slavery are acknowledged and a formal apology for slavery is made, it will be difficult for our country to move forward. Yes, progress has been made; we elected a black man President. But, we hardly live in a post racial society. Look at the Republican nominee who persists in his accusation that President Obama is not an American. It’s racism with a different facade. Paul Waldman, a Washington Post reporter, writes, “It’s an unfathomable cruel and dispiriting message to send to African Americans. It says to them, no matter how smart and hard-working you are, no matter how much you achieve, no matter how carefully you make yourself unthreatening to the white majority, no matter how deftly you manage to move through the most elite institutions in America and dazzle everyone with your talents, you will still not be accepted as a genuine citizen of this country. You could become president of the United States and they will literally demand to see your papers, and even when you give in to this vile demand they will still deny that you are American.”

Race is not buried deep in America’s collective consciousness. It seems just under the surface ready to emerge at any moment, often in violence. As Coates, his son, and the rest of America watch African Americans shot and killed, Coates points out how this violence echoes the years of slavery and Jim Crow. In contrast to Germany and South Africa, who apologized for the horror their countries inflicted on others, a complete acknowledgement of the odious and reprehensible institution of slavery has not occurred in America. Like an adult who resists discussing a traumatic childhood with a therapist, the elected leaders of our country resist discussing the injustices of our country’s childhood.

 Coates writes lyrically and poetically about the indignities and discrimination African Americans endure. The white majority (“those who believe themselves to be white”) live in denial  that America was built on the backs of black men and women. Coates advises his son, “But you cannot arrange your life around them and the small chance of the Dreamers coming into consciousness. Our moment is too brief.  Our bodies too precious.”  

It is tragic that even as progress is made, there are many regressive forces trying to push the country back in time. As Coates says to his son toward the end of his letter, “You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at your heels.” Between the World and Me is not an easy read, but it is an important one.