Book: Between the World and Me
Basic Information : Synopsis : Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : References
Basic Information:
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Edition: ePub on Libby from the San Francisco Public Library
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
ISBN: 0812993543 (ISBN13: 9780812993547)
Start Date: June 28, 2020
Read Date: July 27, 2020
152 pages
Genre: Autobiography, Interracial Understanding
Language Warning: Medium-Particularly the N-word
Rated Overall: 4 out of 5
Updated Jan 17, 2021
Synopsis:
Ta-Nishi Coates writes a public essay to his son, Samori, talking about his life. In particular how racism has invaded his life and he has felt the effects of it. It is not so much to have his son avoid those places in the United States but to be aware how racism works so that he is not blindsided. The book is written in three parts:
Coates experiences growing up
Death of his friend Prince Jones and how it effects his outlook.
His enlightenment as he gained more experience outside of Baltimore and Virginia.
- Recommendation: Sojourner’s Article August 16, 2017
- When: May 29, 2020
- Date Became Aware of Book: May 29, 2020
- How come do I want to read this book: Because of the current times where there is heightened racial tensions. Paul Swearingen noted we need to understand how to communicate with each other,
- What do I think I will get out of it? Better understanding of a different view of our common world.
Title is from a poem by Richard Wright. You can find the poem at Black Star News.They say that it is about a 1935 lynching. Not sure if it is a specific one or general. I found where in 1935 the NAACP published a picture of a lynching but told its readers, do not look at the body, but look at the people behind it.
The book is in three parts, written to his son explaining Coastes himself, but also a larger understanding of his world and how he views his interactions with it.
Coates talks about many people whowere victims of race in some way. Some I am not familiar with. These include:
Eric Garner-choked to death by a policeman because he was selling cigarettes on the side. 7/14/2013 Wikipedia
Renisha McBride-Was drunk and crashed her car. In trying to get help at 4:42am, she knocked/banged on the door of a house. The homeowner shot her. 11/2/2013 Wikipedia
John Crawford-In Beavercreek, Ohio, a man was shopping at WalMart when he picked up an unloaded, unpacked BB gun. The police were called and the police shot him. 8/5/2014 Wikipedia
Tamir Rice-A 12 year old, with a toy gun, without the orange tip was shot dead by the police. 11/11/2014 Wikipedia
Marlene Pinnock-Mentlaly ill woman was in freeway, CHP officer gets her out of the freeway and starts to beat her. 7/1/2014 CBS News
Michael Brown-Fergeson where there was an altercation between Brown and a police officer in which Brown was shot six times, some of them when Brown had his hands up, facing the officer 8/9/2014 Wikipedia
Elmer Clay Newman-death in 2000, ruled a homicide. Prince George County police broke two of Newman’s ribs and two bones in his neck, according to the autopsy, but the five officers involved in his arrest all denied inflicting the injuries.APNews
Gary Hopkins-Killed by offer after Hopkins lunged after his gun according to civil complaint.
Freddie McCollum-assaulted by police in his own home Awarded $4 million judgement.
Prince Carmen Jones-Stalked by the police of Prince George County for drugs. But it was a case of mistaken identity. Jones rammed the unmarked police car. Wikipedia
Abner Louima-arrested, beaten, sodomized by the New York police.
Anthony Baez-died when a football hit a police car in the middle of the night. Officer may have put a choke hold on him.
Trayvon Martin-Shot by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman said in self-defense. There is doubt about how much self-defense there was. From Wikipedia.
Jordan Davis-Shot because he was playing music too loud. From Wikipedia
Kajieme Powell-Stole snack food from convenience store. When confronted by officers, he had a knife and did not put it down. From STI Magazine
In several places he uses the title phrase, Between the World and Me. It starts with Richard Wright’s poem. But he keeps talking about it. As he is talking about how school did not really relate to him, he talks about how it is more of a curtain being drawn between him and the world. Both the mechanics of classroom activity and the things taught did not make sense. It was not revealing to him. I can understand why a kid who has been exposed to one way of life might say, this is stuff I will not use. But to one who wants to get away from the things he has pointed out, his vision seems narrow. I think he realizes this during the last part of the book.
Understand what Coates means by:
The Dream. He uses this as a placeholder for the American perfect life. He says the Dream is built on the backs of blacks. He says that it rests on the known world of slaves and now repression of blacks.
- I question Coates here. My father worked in a cement factory for all of his working life. Is Coates belittling my Dad’s contribution?
- And now that I read John Perkins book, Dream With Me, I am wondering about the limits of Coates Dream. I took it to mean that he meant the materialism of our way of life. When Perkins talks about the Dream, he means the bigger picture of that all people are created equal. There is the subtext of and all should be treated equally. If Coates means what Perkins means by Dream, then I do not understand how Coates can say it is built on the backs of blacks. (1/17/2021)
His/our body
Mecca-Howard University
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center-sounds like the library at Howard. It contains a very large collection of antislavery books.
I
I
start right off and wonder about Coates.Am I being fair to him? At
least I am interacting. He says that I
am accustomed to intelligent people asking about the condition of my
body without realizing the nature of their request.
And what I wonder about is does he put them off without trying to
gain understanding? Or does he have a discussion and try to
enlighten? Several pages later he is asked about what does he mean by
a TV host. His thought is she is being awaken
her from the most gorgeous dream.
In one way, that is the purpose of this book, to enlighten. First his
son, Samori, then the rest of us.
As one of the premises to Coates’ thinking is that democracy is America’s god, but do we worship it purely? His answer is no. (Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God) There are those of privilege and those who need to work extra hard just to obtain the minimum of benefits of democracy. My question is it only race or is it also economic? I suspect it may be more economic than race. Not saying race is not a factor.
I do not understand Coates saying America’s problem is not its betrayal of “government by the people”, but the means by which “the people” acquired their names. But right before this he does talk about what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term “people” to actually mean. He seems to reference that before the 14th amendment that blacks and Native Americans were not considered part of that people. But he conveniently leaves out the part that even after the 14th amendment, so were women still not counted as people.
Americans believe in the reality of “race” as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Coates says that race is the child of racism, not the father. I do not think he is right. He goes on and says that we are more of a hierarchy than something based upon physiognomy. Wouldn’t that say it is more like my assumption? Of course you can ask, do certain colors of skin make an intrinsic difference in how you achieve monetarily? But doesn’t that falsify Coates statement at the start of my paragraph?
In the statement above, it is an interesting thought that races are more of a social construct than a real one. I think I saw once-I do not remember where and am too lazy to research this-that if you remove the layer of skin from someone, you cannot tell what race they are. I am not so sure about that as it seems like certain races have different characteristics of things. The nose comes to mind. But I think for the most part it is a true statement.
Coates says that whites were something else before they were white: belonged to a religious group or came from a certain nation. I think ultimately his point is that white, black, brown, … are all too broad of category. Whites are really German, English, French, …. Blacks are a variety of tribes from Africa or other parts of the world.
America believes itself exceptional. Coates does not go into what he thinks American’s think that they are exceptional about. But he thinks America should be held to a higher moral standard. I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard Which one? But his premise is that violence is part of our society, but if we are exceptional why is violence so prevalent? Why does a disproportionate amount of the violence is done against minorities? Or those lacking power?
In Coastes view, it is not so much individual police officers who are at fault, but that they are carrying out the whims of their society. He says the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. The more I thought about it, Coates may be partially right. Such as in the case of George Floyd I think this was more of a case where society allowed a cop who thought he was the law instead of being part of the law. This cop seemed to want to kill a person. But in other cases it seems like society puts cops into positions where it is an extension of their commission to kill. Malcolm Gladwell gives a good treatment of this in his book Talking with Strangers. But the difference between Gladwell and Coates is how they view society. Coates feels society desires to keep minorities down while Gladwell looks at it that police departments look for any tools they can get to keep society safe. Are these the same coin, but different sides to it?
Either way, Coates goes on to say The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Notice that Coates uses the same techniques which others use on people whom they disagree with. They depersonalize them. In this case he almost makes the police out to be wraths than people when he calls them destroyers. That takes away from the main point-the police are not held accountable.
That should be his main thrust. A few sentences later he says that The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. There are a lot of questions now about how much immunity police should have when they are carrying out their function. I would agree with Coates, the pendulum has swung so far over that unless the police say they are murdering someone, it seems acceptable. He is right, we as a society have said this is OK.
One of the bigger questions which Coates asks and examines for his son is how do I live free in this black body? His grandparents gave him a paradigm of this is his world, his country, his body and he must learn to live in it. In some ways this is true of all of us. But it seems like that is more restraints being black than other people. Maybe restraints is not right, maybe it is hurdles to go over to be able to proclaim this.
Racism is a visceral experience. What does he mean by this? He defines it as creating bodily harm. I am assuming he means to the people who are on the receiving end.
When the police who killed Michael Brown were acquitted, Coates’ son left the room. He had to deal with his own thoughts. Coates says that I have never believed it would be okay, so he did not try to comfort his son. He wanted his son to see reality. The reality is not a good scene. The basic question Coates asks is, how do I live free in this black body? I do not have an answer,I do not know if Coates has an answer. It seems like it is beyond we all hold hands and sing Kumbya. This is where he has laid the groundwork for saying we have to change society so that blacks do not get killed just because.
Baltimore is his hometown. It is not a pretty town and not an easy town for him to grow up in. His view of how things are is rather narrow and shaped by this. Rough so I wonder how he would feel if he grew up in let's say San Francisco or Los Angeles. But Coates has interesting things to say. He notes that his world was one which guns, fights, knives, rape, drugs and disease were all present and the main focus of daily life. There was a sense of nakedness before all of this. I think by nakedness, he means that he felt exposed, without defense before these evils. Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body.
Where was our society in all of this? He did not see the law (police) as protection for himself, rather criminal justice was a club used against him. The various safety nets which we take for granted, which we use to advance are not stair steps which people in the ghetto can use. The law has become an excuse for stopping and frisking you, which is to say, for furthering the assault on your body. Rather they are for those who already have to get further ahead. And by this, I think he means these are things which the middle classroom possibly those in the lower middle class will benefit by. But not people like him. The question to him is, is this a societal failure or a plot to keep people like him down?
One theme which Coates talks about over and over again is the fear for their bodies. The core of the fear? I think back on those boys now and all I see is fear, and all I see is them girding themselves against the ghosts 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. He contrasts the world on TV with his own world, White kids on TV have time to socialize, play, and grow up without fear. But injury and death is lurking around every corner in his neighborhood. As the book goes on, this fear is pervasive. It is the underlying part of Coates' life. He tries to write in a way that his son understands without it stifling him as well. He is not trying to make him street tough, just understanding what he faces. He says that The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting or a pregnancy. How do you live in that world? How do you not end up with mental problems? This was a war for the possession of his body and that would be the war of his whole life.
He notes that life is not what was portrayed on Mr. Belvedere. There was separation here. I obsessed over the distance between that other sector of space and my own. There is a whole galaxy of differences and he was at the wrong end of the galaxy. To Coates, The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting, or a pregnancy. The difference between the adrenaline of a thrill seeker and his experience is choice: Coates had none.
Coates says that he does not want to make his son street smart or tough. He feels deprived. I think I somehow knew that that third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things.
Coates grapples with the differences in perspective of his own view and his son. His son sees Michael Brown’s verdict as an individual case; Coates sees it as part of the cloth of society. This also terrifies his son that what could happen to a black man like Brown, like Martin, can also happen to him. This is a fear of all blacks.
The streets of Baltimore are tough, but Coates did not see education as being the way out. He says that If the streets shackled my right leg, the schools shackled my left. It was a place for well-behaved children, not those who were raised on the streets. The world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls. So why did he go on to college if he felt school was worthless? He does ask the same question students which black, white, brown and whatever else color there is, Why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom?. Education/school was presented as a means of escape-escape from the death penalty, from prison. To Coates schools did not reveal truths, but concealed them. I am wondering at what age he was talking about? Also about how they concealed the truth.
You contrast that with another term he uses throughout the book: the velocity of escape. He is taking a term used to get out of the earth’s gravity. In his case, how can he escape from his upbringing. I think he realizes that this is very difficult to almost impossible to achieve. How do you not live out your childhood fears someplace in your life? How does it not invade your dreams as night? But this escape is what is needed to be released from the demons of his neighborhood. Even a new location does not change these dears.
To me, schools were my friend. My parents understood that they were the means to advance. That is the legacy which my wife and I passed on to them. But to Coates, he says that if the streets shackled my right leg, the schools shacked my left. How so? How could it be one thing for me and another thing for him? He says he suffered at both of them, but he resents the schools more. The schools raised expectations. That you could be someone. The learning he got felt distant. There was the raised hopes, but there was a failure to relate to his present life. What the schools taught him was compliance, not curiosity. Not learning. Walk in a single file, use a #2 pencil. In Coates view, the schools did not teach truth, but served to conceal it.
And then there is religion. His parents had none and he did not have any. Of course, when you start from a place of no God, it is pretty easy to get to I had no sense that any just God was on my side.
The stabilizing force in his life was his grandmother. When I was in trouble at school (which was quite often) she would make me write about it. The writing had to answer a series of questions: Why did I feel the need to talk at the same time as my teacher? Why did I not believe that my teacher was entitled to respect? How would I want someone to behave while I was talking? What would I do the next time I felt the urge to talk to my friends during lesson? He passed on these lessons to his own son. The lesson which she was trying to bring to Coates wsa to understand himself. Here was the lesson: I was not an innocent. That is the lesson we all need to continually learn. When I am involved, how did I wrong someone, not only how I was wronged.
Coates went on to Howard University, where his father was employed for a time. He says that there is a primary language—violence. He starts to admire groups and people like the Black Panthers-his Dad was a captain in it, and Malcolm X. He asks the question, Why were only our heroes nonviolent? He sees the violence around him, particularly white against black. Why does this apply only to blacks? I came to see the streets and the schools as arms of the same beast.
He does not doubt that individual educators are noble and have good intentions. But the whole institution goes racist. He sees the intentions as fueling the system which makes schools part of the problem of the system.
In his neighborhood, guns meant you were someone. That is until you left home and realized that everybody else had a gun and a bigger one at that. The streets taught violence. Fathers tried to steer their sons away from that, but by using violence.
There is a section which is moving to me. It talks about how Coates was forced to come up with his personal answers to questions. Actually, he admits he did not come up with answers, but more refined the questions. When he asked his parents, they would refuse to answer. Instead referred him to books and more books. They did not want him to have secondhand answers. The constant questioning, the constant seeking, lead him to better understanding. I devoured the books because they were the rays of light peeking out from the doorframe, and perhaps past that door there was another world, one beyond the gripping fear that undergirded the Dream.
Malcolm X became his hero, even while living at home. While he felt schools lied to him, he thought Macolm X never did. Malcolm was the first political pragmatist I knew, the first honest man I’d ever heard. And He would not turn the other cheek for you. He would not be a better man for you. He would not be your morality. Malcolm spoke like a man who was free, like a black man above the laws that proscribed our imagination. When I read this, I wrote, it sounds like a way into the pit of where humans can go, whether black or white. And now that I am thinking about it, it also sounds immature. Immature because it does not take into account the community he lives in. Morality allows us to live with each other without fighting each other..
Coates paraphrases Malcolm X as saying that if you are black you are born in jail. He feels this way because of the recurring theme of body-in this case, his body is not his own. He yearns to live free, to own his own body. Not have it hostage to fear of the streets or the lies of society-he recognizes this. My reclamation would be accomplished, like Malcolm’s, through books, through my own study and exploration
He talks about reclaiming his body so that he could be like:
He also lists things which went counter to establishing blacks as viable in United States society: COINTELPRO-an FBI surveillance program, Black flight and drugs.
Howard University led to fulfilling his thoughts on how a school should be. He calls it his Mecca. He felt that it did not fit you into a box of the past or future, but allowed you to be yourself, while surrounded with people like you. The Mecca is a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body. Howard was formed out of the Jim Crow days. He found a variable menagerie of thoughts and types there. He talks about Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston being there.
Until this book collided with another book my book ground read, Their Eyes Were Watching God, I will confess I never heard of Hurston. Glad they worked off of each other.
Coates is saying that blacks want to be part of the history being taught. Not just as the special people. They[Coates parents, grandparents] were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Rebelling against the white serious history, relegating blacks as objects not verbs. The implication of history as it was being thoughts was Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior.
He talks about authors and books he met at Howard, how it awakened him to another rendition of the world that he found in his schooling in Baltimore. He started formulating his view of society based upon these readings, wanting the be able to exercise power like the figures he read about. Authors included people who I have not heard of: Larry Neal, Eric Williams, George Padmore, Sonia Sanchez, Stanley Crouch, Harold Cruse, Manning Marable, Addison Gayle, Carolyn Rodgers, Etheridge Knight, and Sterling Brown.
Who was Queen Nzinga?
Coates went into his study of history thinking that there was an underlying thread. That thread would show how racist his upbringing was and how racist his society was. Instead I did not find a coherent tradition marching lockstep but instead factions, and factions within factions. He saw that black writers were at odds with each other on what and how they present things. Not only current day writers, but those in the past had conflicts. How should someone make coherence out of the conflict? How should a white audience know which voice is authentic, representative, or on the mark? I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Interesting thought. But how did he learn to process this knowledge? First there was his grandmother, but there was also school. Another interesting thought: The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, ...
The Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing. How does Coates back up this statement? Before this he says that The Dream lives because we generalize and do not ask the broader and more penetrating questions. Also the allowable answers have to fit within a certain framework. When he read his poetry at free mics, people were there which helped him understand that just because he stated something, it was not necessarily so. He had to be particular about the statements. I think there are some very profound things he is saying in this paragraph.
Robert Hayden’s Middle Passage
Poetry aims for an economy of truth—loose and useless words must be discarded, and I found that these loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts.
I began to see discord, argument, chaos, perhaps even fear, as a kind of power. He seemed to be drawn to it like a moth to a candle, or in his words, it was a beacon. But why? A kind of adrenaline rush which a person of words would have rather than a thrill which a BASE jumper may have?
Coates discovered that not all which is black is beautiful. Just outside of Washington DC, I think in Maryland, there is a Prince George County. He says it is black run, but it was not a safe haven for blacks. To be black and beautiful was not a matter for gloating. Being black did not immunize us from history’s logic or the lure of the Dream. The Dream again.
History was not going to be any comfort to him either. His professors asked him hard questions about blacks in Africa. Didn’t they procure slaves? Did their kingdom’s do it peacefully? And especially asking what does he mean by black? He notes that “agitprop” (politically induced statements in art or literature) did not replace studying hard. And then at this black university, he take a European history class of post 1800’s, He learned that those at the bottom of the economic heap, such as a the Irish was considered black as well. Perhaps the Irish too had once lost their bodies. Perhaps being named “black” had nothing to do with any of this; perhaps being named “black” was just someone’s name for being at the bottom, a human turned to object, object turned to pariah. I wonder at times if the prejudice which some have is more economic than racial. That the racial is more of a cover. But I do not think that economic is the total answer. And even if it was, is a poor person worth less than a rich one?
Who was Alessandro de’ Medici? A dark completed ruler of of Medici.
Coates found an essay by Ralph Wiley responding to Saul Bellows that Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. Wiley responded that Unless you find a profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership. Coates realizes that My great error was not that I had accepted someone else’s dream but that I had accepted the fact of dreams, the need for escape, and the invention of racecraft. I think Coates realizes that this is not a real question.We each are to be individuals and responding to authors, thoughts and words as individuals, not because of culture or race. I would also say that when we read something, we do have our culture and race lens which we see things through which affects how we interpret the words.
Coates realizes that he is not an innocent when it comes to taking another’s body. He relates how he values the beauty of a woman, not necessarily for her. Or how he has names for those of different sexual orientation. He says perhaps I too had the capacity for plunder, maybe I would take another human’s body. He realizes that those outside of his tribe are those who he seems to be devaluing.
I grew up in a house drawn between love and fear. There was no room for softness. But this girl with the long dreads revealed something else—that love could be soft and understanding; that, soft or hard, love was an act of heroism. I like how he talks about the different attributes of love.
He evolved into a journalist. I found that people would tell me things, that the same softness that once made me a target now compelled people to trust me with their stories. Interesting that it is not the tough guy who gets ahead. It is the softer person. But the soft person needs to survive and not be broken. He was curious about people's lives. He noted that in the Moorland Center, he was able to explore black history and traditions; out in the Howard gathering place, he could see the traditions in person. But it was as a journalist where he could meld the two and come to understanding, questioning those who knew, or at least those who had wisdom.
In the next chapter he will be talking about the killing of Prince Jones. But here, he almost seems like a perfect person. There are people whom we do not fully know, and yet they live in a warm place within us, and when they are plundered, when they lose their bodies and the dark energy disperses, that place becomes a wound.
Talks about meeting his wife and her background. Grew up without knowing her father. Coates thinks these men are cowards, but also feels that blacks were given dice which had been loaded against them. They conceived when they were not married. They also understood that marriage was not a defense against either leaving the relationship. He says that his son was the defense-they both loved him. When her mom came out to help take care of their son, she told Coates-take care of her daughter. That shook him from a sense of just carrying on to responsibility. Responsibility not only for her, but their son. He wanted him to understand all which he knew. They named him Samori.
Who was Samori Touré?
At the end of the chapter he understood the fight rule. When a boy was going to be beaten by others, the rest of his friends must stand with him and receive the beating. It does not mean that you will be beaten any less, but it means you are with your people and your people are with you. You do not hand over your body or the body of your friends.
I have raised you to respect every human being as singular, and you must extend that same respect into the past. I respect that.
Coates points out that blacks have been enslaved in this country longer than they have been freed. Point to ponder when people say when will the entitlement end. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine.
We diverge in our thinking here: Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. To me, the God of history is personal and he is working with our world to make it in His image. We keep spoiling it.
Coates ends this part with this wisdom: The birth of a better world is not ultimately up to you. He cannot be responsible for others, whether they are black or the police which will want to beat him. He does warn his son that woman, especially black women, bear more of a burden with their bodies. Not only do white not respect a black body, but all males have the potential to abuse a woman’s body. You have to make your peace with the chaos, but you cannot lie.
II
Coates tells the story of Prince Jones who was killed by a Prince George County detective. He notes that throughout American history, no police department fired its guns more than that of Prince George’s County. Wondering where he gets this fact-not saying it is not true. Coates does not cite where statements like these are made.
This killing struck close to home as Jones was a Howard student, a friend of Coates. At Jones memorial service, he heard Dr. Mable Jones, Prince’s mother, speaking of her son’s death as a call to move from her comfortable suburban life into activism. At the service he heard calls for forgiveness for the murdering officer. To Coates it was not the officer. But he knew that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his country and all the fears that have marked it from birth. The fear Coates has is: Prince Jones, murdered by the men who should have been his security guards, is always with me, and I knew that soon he would be with you.
Here is the crux of the book. These [police reforms] are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country’s criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The real question in my mind is are we? Am I guilty? At least not consciously. But do I allow abuses to go on by remaining silent? This is emphasized in his next statement: The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs. Followed by This officer, given maximum power, bore minimum responsibility. He was charged with nothing. He was punished by no one. He was returned to his work.
Where I think he is wrong is not that society condones how the police operate, but his lack of assigning individual responsibility to the individual officers. It is dual, society says this is what we want, but the individual officers are the ones who carried out the actions. This is how the various war courts have stated when genocide has been carried out.
Religion is where I think Coates really misses. He says about the Jones’ funeral: When the assembled mourners bowed their heads in prayer, I was divided from them because I believed that the void would not answer back. He looks into the void and feels nothing, they expect an answer. This seems to me the call of Habakkuk:
How long, Lord, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
God’s answer is:
For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come
and will not delay.
Yet it does seem like forever. O Lord. How long will it take?
Note sure what to do with this statement: Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. From the words around it, black parents will take care of their own kids, even to the point of putting painful fences around them. So how is this different from any other parent? The difference in my mind is that blacks know that their children will face issues which white children usually do not face.
And here is the puzzle which I have, and I think it puzzled Coates even more: The officer who killed Prince Jones was black. Not only that, Prince George County is black, the police supervisors are black and the politicians are black. How could this happen if all blacks are brothers? Coates being a journalist had the ability and power to delve into this question. One theory which Coates pursued was that the community wanted to be safe. According to this theory “safety” was a higher value than justice, perhaps the highest value. I understood. From his upbringing, he knew he wanted this as well. To be safe in his home. To be safe in the area he lived in. He did not have this safety. I always thought I was destined to go back home after college—but not simply because I loved home but because I could not imagine much else for myself. And that stunted imagination is something I owe to my chains. And yet some of us really do see more. He says that Perhaps that explains every girl I’ve ever loved, because every girl I’ve ever loved was a bridge to somewhere else.
Coates says that I would never consider any American citizen pure. Would that include himself? Malcolm X? For that matter by what standard does he measure purity? My guess is that his thinking is that the United States was built on slavery. We all have tasted the fruits of that slavery, even if it is residual. In that way, his concept is not too far off of a Christian’s concept of original sin. We all bit that apple and now are tainted.
The above statement is said in context of 9/11. He had only been in New York a couple of months when 9/11/2001 occurred. His ponderings included the tragedy of that day. But his thoughts went back further to Prince Jones, and even farther to when there was a slave auction arena on Manhattan island. His thoughts included that Bin Laden was not the first man to bring terror to that section of the city. A perspective.
But in the process, he dehumanizes the police, the firefighters-they are no longer human to him. Isn’t this the same sin as what happens when slaves were taken and kept?
I tell you this because you must understand, no matter the point of our talk, that I didn’t always have things, but I had people—I always had people.
The difference in childhoods: The galaxy belonged to them[while gentrified Harlem parents], and as terror was communicated to our children [black], I saw mastery communicated to theirs. Is this more the reason why there is a difference in races? Expectations? If so, how can the messaging be set differently? Also this is not a one day change, but one which is communicated through generations. What needs to be done to institute this change? I think making a black life more secure, not in dependency but in real life situations. This includes financial, housing, police, and racial interactions. What does that mean? Not sure.
All my life I’d heard people tell their black boys and black girls to “be twice as good,” which is to say “accept half as much.” And yet, I have always felt if I wanted a promotion, I needed to work like I had my next job. This is prejudice, but also good advice. It is what makes each generation better.
The robbery of time is not measured in lifespans but in moments.
He talks to his son about the consequences of errors in judgement. But the price of error is higher for you than it is for your countrymen. Society will be more aggressive towards a black than a white. But I wonder if it is on the perceived sense of powerlessness, or the lack of economic status? I do not know. Still when a white looks at a black, there is a tendency to see either.
The fact of history is that black people have not—probably no people have ever—liberated themselves strictly through their own efforts.
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions… Ideology—that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. Quote is longer than what Coates gives. It is from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
The entire narrative of this country argues against the truth of who you are. He is telling his son this. I do not understand what Coates is trying to tell his son. He is showing him a couple of battlefields of the Civil War. He says the Civil War was glossed over in his history class and makes a generalization that it is glossed over everywhere. What I remember is spring quite sometime n it and on Lincoln. So is his statement only concerning himself? At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combined, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies—cotton—was America’s primary export. Interesting statement. Where does he get his $4 billion from?
Who was Thavolia Glymph? Historian. Wrote a book Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household. From write ups, she showed how white mistresses on a plantation were the driving force behind how slaves were treated.
Interesting statement. Probably true outside of the context Coates says. Part of me thinks that your very vulnerability brings you closer to the meaning of life. How Coates talks is that he feels that he cannot save his son from the tragedies of being black. But also, having come close to stepping on a rattlesnake, there are certain things you no longer take for granted.
I am wondering about his phrase people believing they are white. He understands that there is no such thing as white. That is because we do not all descend from the same root. On the other hand, he talks about black being beautiful. Does he not recognize the same thing can be said about blacks? So what is he trying to say? Or is he just throwing mud on things?
Another place I do not understand. He takes an instance where a black family is being evicted from their place of residence. The man is upset at everybody, yelling and cursing the police, and then the black movers. Coates take on this His manner was like all the powerless black people I’d ever known, exaggerating their bodies to conceal a fundamental plunder that they could not prevent. How does this fundamental plunder tie in to the eviction being done? Is Coates more saying something about the man than the eviction? He would rather not face reality and lives in a fantasy? I do not know. Even when he encountered a family making things work for their children, he says I admired them, but I knew the whole time that I was merely encountering the survivors. I wonder what he would say about Michele Obama’s book Becoming? Maybe I have an answer in a Nov 14, 2018 article in the Guardian. There is a paragraph of:
The writer Ta-Nahesi Coates, present at one of these events, was so taken aback by her account of an “idyllic youth” that he “almost mistook her for white”, comparing her, he writes in his book We Were Eight Years in Power, to “an old stevedore hungering for the long-lost neighbourhood of yore”. “In all my years of watching black public figures,” he said, “I’d never heard one recall such an idyllic youth.”
He interviewed a mother whose son had been killed because he played his music too loud. The mother’s response was God had focused her anger away from revenge and toward redemption. But do not mistake this for acceptance and passivity. Coates had taken his son along. She spoke to him and told him that He mattered and had value. He has the right to wear what he wants and play the music he wants to. He has the right to be himself. I agree with the caveat, there needs to be mutual respect to live in community, not one sided. Still even loud music does not constitute the right to kill. I believe that when they shatter the body they shatter everything, and I knew that all of us—Christians, Muslims, atheists—lived in this fear of this truth.
Only once—in the two years after your birth, in the first two rounds of the fight of my life—have I believed he would have been disappointed. I write you at the precipice of my fortieth year, having come to a point in my life—not of great prominence—but far beyond anything that boy could have even imagined. I did not master the streets, because I could not read the body language quick enough. I did not master the schools, because I could not see where any of it could possibly lead. But I did not fall. I have my family. I have my work. I no longer feel it necessary to hang my head at parties and tell people that I am “trying to be a writer.” And godless though I am, the fact of being human, the fact of possessing the gift of study, and thus being remarkable among all the matter floating through the cosmos, still awes me. This may be as good as a person can get black or white. I am glad for him. There is wonder still every day.
I have spent much of my studies searching for the right question by which I might fully understand the breach between the world and me. This too is good. When we search for something, it should be the right thing to search for. I suspect we do not know if this is the right thing to search for until the end of our lives. At that point, we can rest with ease to say we have had a life of meaning. Wrong question, I wonder how that would feel? He is 40ish at this point, I am in my upper 60’s. Not sure that age has to do with the search.
What he says the above in recognition is that he thinks race is the wrong thing to search for. He does not think we are of anyone race anymore. We all have mixtures. He has realized this as he has searched. the changes have taught me how to best exploit that singular gift of study, to question what I see, then to question what I see after that, because the questions matter as much, perhaps more than, the answers. I agree. I often say that the best thing which college taught me was how to think.
To go along with this, there is the expansion of one horizon’s Coates wife had a dream of going to Paris. When she returned her eyes were dancing with all the possibilities out there, not just for her but for you and for me.
As Coates matured, he realized he was part of other peoples stories-Jews, Southern Cal, Native Americans, Italians, and so on. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after. I think that he is talking about breaking out of his Baltimore world into something wider. When he was in high school, he wondered why was he in this French class. He now wish he could go back to that student and express to him that this class was a gateway to the world. When looked at it right, all experiences we have can lead to something beyond the experience.
After his wife had gone to Paris, he went.. There he saw people with what looked like “no armour.” By that, they did not have the constant fear of attack and could live rather free. Freedom was expressed by I had never sat in a public garden before, had not even known it to be something that I’d want to do. And all around me there were people who did this regularly. He felt alien for once, not part of the equation, but able to observe. He brought his son back here with his wife so that he would know what freedom looked like. I am tied to old ways, which I learned in a hard house.
After meeting a Frenchman and helping him with English, he realized something: watching him walk away, I felt that I had missed part of the experience because of my eyes, because my eyes were made in Baltimore, because my eyes were blindfolded by fear. This is a good thing to remember. Fear should be accounted for, not discarded, but dealt with and not inhibit.
Remember your name. Remember that you and I are brothers, are the children of trans-Atlantic rape. Remember the broader consciousness that comes with that. Remember that this consciousness can never ultimately be racial; it must be cosmic. Remember the Roma you saw begging with their children in the street, and the venom with which they were addressed. Remember the Algerian cab driver, speaking openly of his hatred of Paris, then looking at your mother and me and insisting that we were all united under Africa. Remember the rumbling we all felt under the beauty of Paris, as though the city had been built in abeyance of Pompeii. Remember the feeling that the great public gardens, the long lunches, might all be undone by a physics, cousin to our rules and the reckoning of our own country, that we do not fully comprehend.
He talks about being good to share awe. So true. When I see something by myself,my first instinct is to share with someone, specifically my wife. If she is not available, someone close. If none of these are available, then anybody.
Coates admires his son, how he is devoling. My job, in the little time we have left together, is to match that intelligence with wisdom. That is the essence of fathering. Being able to nurture an offspring. He says that beauty is not only his son’s. He does not express whose it is. But my guess is that he owes it to those who came before him, paving the way for the emerging freedom they have.
Coates thinks that society says it is OK to assault a black body for minor infractions, even wearing a hood or playing loud music. He lists several names-see above. He asks the question, should a police officer be an executor? Even if it is in self-defense?
III
Coates interviews Price Jones’ mother. Her personal history, even though a highly established medical doctor had the residue of fear from being raised in Louisiana. Her ancestors had been enslaved in that same region, and that as a consequence of that enslavement, a fear echoed down through the ages. Some things just do not leave you. And this is the undercurrent of many blacks in the United States.
In high school, she excelled. But there was always the undercurrent of being degraded. Such as at football games, if the opposing player was black, there would be shouts of Kill that N. They would yell this sitting right next to her, as though she really were not there. Invisible, except when needed. When asked about did she know any other black radiologists, No. Wasn’t it hard on her? She was almost insulted by the assumption. She could not acknowledge any discomfort, and she did not speak of herself as remarkable, because it conceded too much, because it sanctified tribal expectations when the only expectation that mattered should be rooted in an assessment of Mable Jones.
Dr Jones goes and talks about her religious upbring. Coates’ mind thinks about what he lacked in this area. And I thought of my own distance from an institution that has, so often, been the only support for our people. I often wonder if in that distance I’ve missed something, some notions of cosmic hope, some wisdom beyond my mean physical perception of the world, something beyond the body, that I might have transmitted to you.
She talked about Prince Jones-named after his father. She wanted him to go to high level schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, … But he wanted to go to Howard. Why? Like at least one third of all the students who came to Howard, Prince was tired of having to represent to other people. At Howard he was able to be there for himself. Even when they succeeded, as so many of them did, they were singled out, made examples of, transfigured into parables of diversity.
Coates felt that her country, the United States let her down. And she could not lean on her country for help.
Dr Jones’ emotional state So much so that whenever a thought of him would come to mind, all I could do was pray and ask for mercy. I thought I was going to lose my mind and go crazy. I felt sick. I felt like I was dying. And also: She said she thought the glory days of this country had long ago passed, and even those glory days were sullied: They had been built on the bodies of others. “And we can’t get the message,” she said. “We don’t understand that we are embracing our deaths.
Coates goes off a bit on a tangent, but interesting. Look at the pictures of the civil rights movement in the 60’s. No anger, no sadness, no joy. No emotion. They are looking past the present. They had on armour. At the end of the interview, his mind goes back to these people after thinking about all which Dr. Jones had achieved and how the jeep she bought him had been the instrument of his death. Perhaps they [60’s protesters] had known something terrible about the world. Perhaps they so willingly parted with the security and sanctity of the black body because neither security nor sanctity existed in the first place.
And black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors.
Who is Marcus Garvey?
Plunder has matured into habit and addiction. Coates is still in the mindset of whites against blacks, even with some of the things he saw in Paris, some of the deepening he had. I would agree that for blacks, the United States can e a dangerous place. But it seems like there is a continuing working towards a different United States. Obama was elected president. That is not the end of things, but part of the road.
His closing words to his son: And still I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of The Mecca. Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers.
Evaluation:
This book is written from the point of view of a letter to Coates' son. He explains his perspective, but also notes the differences of his son’s experiences and his own. And the hopes he has for his son. But more importantly, the warnings he has about life in the United States as a black.
Ta-Nehisi Coates knows how to write. His words are powerful, full of power, punch and emotion. As a essay to his son, it is insightful and instructive. And I think as a general reader, listening in to his instructions, it helps to understand how a particular black person thinks. And that is one of the two things I wonder about with this book. First is it how all blacks think? Is this how black men think? Or even a substantial number? Even if it just Coates who thinks this, it is instructive to me. The second is I wish he was referencing where he gets his statements. Such as he states that at the start of the Civil War, black bodies was worth $4 billion, more than anything else in the United States. An endnote or reference where he gets these statements would help me and help to substantiate his statements.
The reason why I read this book was to give me a window into how blacks think, particularly after the summer of 2020. Did Between the World and Me meet expectations into giving a window into how Blacks view and life in America? Yes-to a qualified extent. The yes is that Coates walks through life and uncertainties of living Black in America from the time of being a youth to educating his son on living here. And the no is more from the nature of the question. Coates gives this view from his perspective. But he is obviously someone who is educated, someone who can put thoughts and words together in an above average way.
I think one of the more important messages to his son, and us, is this: These [police reform] are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country’s criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. Remember, this was written in 2015.
Notes from my book group:
Have you received a letter or advice from your parents about how you should act in society? How did it make you feel? How do you think Coates son Samori felt about this instruction? How do you think he will feel in twenty years? Or about how it was published?
What would you write to your offspring-child or grandchild-about living today in this society? How would it compare with what Coates wrote? Why the difference, if any?
Throughout the book, Coates has talked about 15 blacks who were killed by police or citizens which were the people who killed were not prosecuted. Why does Coates talk about them? What proposition is Coates advancing through the deaths of these people? If some of them were “justified” killings, does that lessen Coates' argument? What ground rules for engagement does Coates propose? What rules would you support?
What does Coates mean by The Dream? Throughout the book he points to the Dream and its failings.. Why does Coates feel it has failed? How has it failed? Has it succeeded for some? For you? If it succeeded for you, do you feel it was because of keeping others down? If you have not succeeded, why not? In one place he says that The Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing. How does Coates envision that The Dream warp these things?
When Coates is talking about my/our body, what does he mean? How does Coates feel his body is being taken? He says that he had fear for their bodies.Talk about what this kind of fear will do to you? Where did the fear originate?
Coates comes to the realization that he is not innocent when it comes to taking overs bodies. Such as gays Jews, other nationalities, and women. How does he come to that confession? As you read this, was there times which you realized that you may have “taken a body” as well? How so?
Coates says America’s problem is not its betrayal of “government by the people”, but the means by which “the people” acquired their names. What does he mean? If he is referring to the 14th amendment, why does he leave out women and include Native Americans?
When Coates talks about Americans believe in the reality of “race” as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Coates says that race is the child of racism, not the father, what does he mean? What does he say the reason for this statement? Is it true?Or are Americans more driven by other factors, such as status, economics, power, … ?
There
is a section in the book where he talks about whites are not really
white (people
believing they are white),
but a mixture of other ethnics which may no longer exist. Does he
extend that to other skin tones, such as black? If so, what does he
mean by “black is beautiful?” Or any other of the black
statements he makes?
He talks about how the violence of Malcolm X was the way to achieve change, rather than the Civil Rights demonstrations of the 50’s and 60’s. How does he think violence will achieve better results than the 60’s? Do you think the attraction he has for the philosophy of Malcolm X is the environment he was raised in in Baltimore (Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body.)? Or his father’s involvement with the Black Panthers? How does he exercise this philosophy? In the latter part of the book, it seems like he is more accepting of the ways the protestors of the 60’s went about business. Do you think Coates philosophy changed?
Coates
rejects the America is “exceptional” thought. Instead he says
that I
propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard .
What
standards is he wanting to see? On what basis does he want these
standards made?
Coates says the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. In your view is it cops who are either making poor decisions or are bad causing the issues, or that society is empowering police departments to go after people of color? If the later, why does society do that? Later on he tells his son that police reform is not the solution. Where does he think the solution is? Do you agree? Should police have immunity for carrying out their duties?
Coates goes on to say The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. What is the reason why Coates tries to depersonalize the police (calling them the destroyer)? Why does he call them destroyers? Is this how you view them?
Why did he consider schools a place that did not reveal truths, but concealed them?
In space, thee is a term used to leave earth’s gravitational pull: the velocity of escape. How does Coates use it in his instructions to his son? What does it take to escape the situations Coates faced when he was growing up?
According to Coates, how blacks are portrayed i history is sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. How have you been talk or read about history? What blacks do you remember being taught about? How were they portrayed?
When he was studying history and its contours, he noted that black writers were in conflict over how to interpret and understand its history. Is there one way to understand events and the flow of events? How should one? Does it matter what lens one should use? How do you decide which lens is appropriate?
When Prince Jones was killed in Prince George County, Maryland, Coates sought answers as this was a black county, run by black police and politicians. What conclusions does Coates come up with? How does he support them?
Coates is not a believer in any religion. He talks about the god of history is an atheist. What does he mean by this? How did he come to this conclusion? Is this a case of what you want to see is what you will find? At Prince Jones’ funeral he says that When the assembled mourners bowed their heads in prayer, I was divided from them because I believed that the void would not answer back. How does belief and unbelief divide people? Is this a fundamental divide?
Comment on The robbery of time is not measured in lifespans but in moments..
When following police for a day in Chicago, he comes across a family being evicted. The man’s manner was like all the powerless black people I’d ever known, exaggerating their bodies to conceal a fundamental plunder that they could not prevent. How does this fundamental plunder tie in to the eviction being done? How does being powerless led to frustration and aggression?
When Coates says I have spent much of my studies searching for the right question by which I might fully understand the breach between the world and me. What is the right question?
Coates’ horizons get expanded. First by living in New York, then by going to Paris. How does his understanding change as he gains new experiences? Does that alter his basic premises? How does new experiences change us?
Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.
Why the title of Between the World and Me? This comes from a poem by Richard Write. How does Coates weave this into his book? Does it work as a title?
Did the ending seem fitting? Satisfying? Does it answer what the author wants us to question?
Every nook has a world view. Were you able to identify this author’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the book?
In what context was religion talked about in this book?
Was there anybody you would consider religious? How was religion talked about?
Why do you think the author wrote this book?
What would you ask the author if you had a chance?
What “takeaways” did you have from this book?
What central ideas does the author present?
Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific
What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?
Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?
Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?
What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?
Are these idea’s controversial?
To whom and why?
Are there solutions which the author presents?
Do they seem workable? Practicable?
How would you implement them?
Describe the culture talked about in the book.
How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?
What economic or political situations are described?
Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?
How did this book affect your view of the world?
Of how God is viewed?
What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?
Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?
What was memorable?
Publisher’s reading guide
Publisher’s teacher guide
New Words:
physiognomy(I): a person's facial features or expression, especially when regarded as indicative of character or ethnic origin.
Banality (I): something that lacks originality, freshness, or novelty
visceral experience (1): visceral experience means experience received from intuition and not from rational learning or observations.
Agitprop (I): political (originally communist) propaganda, especially in art or literature.
Bacchanals (I): an occasion of wild and drunken revelry.
Bindi (I): a coloured dot worn on the centre of the forehead, originally by Hindus and Jains from the Indian subcontinent.
Arrondissement (II): a subdivision of a French department, for local government administration.
Children of the Sun by George Wells Parker
Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire by Drusilla Dunjee Houston
The African Origins of Civilization by Cheikh Anta Diop
Destruction of Black Civilization by Chancellor Williams
Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household by Thavolia Glymph
12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup
Good Quotes:
First Line: Son, last Sunday the host of a popular news show asked me what it mean to lose my body.
Last Line: Through the windshield I saw the rain coming down in sheets.
The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting or a pregnancy. Chp I
I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free, Chp I
Poetry aims for an economy of truth—loose and useless words must be discarded, and I found that these loose and useless words were not separate from loose and useless thoughts. Chp I
There are people whom we do not fully know, and yet they live in a warm place within us, and when they are plundered, when they lose their bodies and the dark energy disperses, that place becomes a wound.Chp I
The robbery of time is not measured in lifespans but in moments.Chp II
To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good, or else that it's a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956
References:
Publisher's Web Site for Book
Author's Web Site
Wikipedia-Book
Wikipedia-Author
Amazon-Book
Amazon-Author
GoodReads-Book
GoodReads-Author
New York Times Review
NPR Review
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