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4.54 AVERAGE
4.54 AVERAGE
Quite a compelling read. It was deeply personal to the author as he writes to his son about his experience, how his blackness informed and shaped his experience and how it limited it, in a way, as well. There were heart wrenching details and eye-opening revelations that, I'm finding, are not revelatory. Black people and people of color have been saying these things for years, and some (white) people are perhaps only just starting to truly hear it and process it, and figure out ways to dismantle the fear that he felt as he grew up, what he doesn't want his son to feel, but who feels something else as he sees unarmed Black men shot by police and then nothing happens to the police. It's a different feeling. It was a brief read, and I will probably read it again.
So much to think about in such a short span of pages! I'd been hearing about this book for years and finally just sat down to read it. Basically, I get why it's been such a pivotal work in the antiracist canon. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes with a certain poetic fire—every word strikes the page with importance. There's so much content packed inside "Between the World and Me" though that I had difficulty following his train of thought at times. Because of the general hype surrounding Ta-Nehisi Coates, I think my expectations were unrealistically raised which clouded my perception of this book, which in reality I think rests around 3.5-ish stars. Overall though, very powerful and worth a read. I think his son would be quite proud.
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Between the World and Me is a letter written by the author to his teenage son. This letter discusses the truth as the author sees it of the black experience in America. It discusses family, racism, community, culture and much more. Coates sees that his 15-year-old son is disillusioned by the black male experience. He tries to show his own experience and beliefs on these matters.
I think this is a really important discussion that America needs to have with itself. Particularly, in light of the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Gardner. Regardless of how you feel about these racially-charged issues, it certainly can't help to see these issues through the eyes of the people who are directly affected by these experiences.
This book helped me understand perspectives I had not even considered before. I am really glad that I took the time to read it.
I think this is a really important discussion that America needs to have with itself. Particularly, in light of the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown and Eric Gardner. Regardless of how you feel about these racially-charged issues, it certainly can't help to see these issues through the eyes of the people who are directly affected by these experiences.
This book helped me understand perspectives I had not even considered before. I am really glad that I took the time to read it.
beautiful prose & the content is extremely necessary, especially given the current state of our world. there were so many lines that hit me heavily, one toward the end that i don’t think i’ll forget for a long time: “…the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all.”
challenging
dark
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
A must read for anyone curious about critical race theory. This book helped my white partner to start understanding race relations in America.
A simple story of a man's life and growth.
"'Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus' wrote Wiley. 'Unless you find profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.'... 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." pg. 56
"Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus in the tribe." pg. 60
"And the history of civilization Is littered with dead 'races' (Frankish, Italian, German, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their purpose--the organization of people beneath, and beyond, the umbrella of a rights." pg. 115
Just an overall fantastic meditation on the continuous oppression of black Americans, or stealing of their bodies in Coates' terms, since slavery. I feel like what I write here cannot give it justice, absolutely worth re-reading multiple times in my life.
“We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. “ pg. 146
"We have taken the one-drop rule of Dreamers and flipped them. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people" pg. 149
"'Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus' wrote Wiley. 'Unless you find profit in fencing off universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.'... 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." pg. 56
"Hate gives identity. The nigger, the fag, the bitch illuminate the border, illuminate what we ostensibly are not, illuminate the Dream of being white, of being a Man. We name the hated strangers and are thus in the tribe." pg. 60
"And the history of civilization Is littered with dead 'races' (Frankish, Italian, German, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their purpose--the organization of people beneath, and beyond, the umbrella of a rights." pg. 115
Just an overall fantastic meditation on the continuous oppression of black Americans, or stealing of their bodies in Coates' terms, since slavery. I feel like what I write here cannot give it justice, absolutely worth re-reading multiple times in my life.
“We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. “ pg. 146
"We have taken the one-drop rule of Dreamers and flipped them. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people" pg. 149