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4.54 AVERAGE
4.54 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
relaxing
sad
tense
challenging
sad
slow-paced
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Coates writes this novel in the form of a narrative to his son. The story centers around one singular theme: the Black body. Coates mentions the victims of murders throughout America for simply being Black. The Black body has been targeted, used for profit, raped, beat, incarcerated, and made inferior. Throughout the novel, Coates continually mentions the power of the Black body and the need to protect it and fight for the rights it deserves. At the end of the novel, Coates brings up his friend Prince Jones who was killed by the police. He ties the whole novel together by highlighting the life of his friend and the hopes he has for his son.
This is an essential read for any and all Americans, but especially those going into education. Coates highlights that the justice system controls the Black body, but the education system is what controls the Black mind.
This is an essential read for any and all Americans, but especially those going into education. Coates highlights that the justice system controls the Black body, but the education system is what controls the Black mind.
"I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world."
I don't think I've ever come across a contemporary author as eloquent and visceral as Coates before. He has a poetic writing style and tells a powerful story of racism's lasting impact on America. Between the World and Me is a letter from Coates to his son, Samori. It's heart-wrenching, unforgettable, and intensely personal.
Coates was inspired to write Between the World and Me after reading James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. He aimed to write a short book of hard truths that would haunt readers. I think it's fair to say he succeeded. I doubt I'll be reading a better book than this anytime soon.
I don't think I've ever come across a contemporary author as eloquent and visceral as Coates before. He has a poetic writing style and tells a powerful story of racism's lasting impact on America. Between the World and Me is a letter from Coates to his son, Samori. It's heart-wrenching, unforgettable, and intensely personal.
Coates was inspired to write Between the World and Me after reading James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. He aimed to write a short book of hard truths that would haunt readers. I think it's fair to say he succeeded. I doubt I'll be reading a better book than this anytime soon.
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Eye opening and timeless. Written with such captivating prose, this novel is a must read for everyone.
While this psuedo-memoir is soundly written and an easy enough read, the problem I have generally always had with authors like Ta-Nahisi Coates and their brand of social commentary is that, while they abhor the limiting intentions behind the societal labels that histotical Western society has applied to non-White groups (Blacks in this case), these same authors have no hesitation in defining the totality of Black experience in a very reductionist, monolithic, anecdotally-driven fashion that apply their own set of limiting factors. They take the position of presuming to know what the Black experience is for the majority of people of African-American descent in this country and then use that presumption as a basis for establishing a collective racial identity around that experience (What Mr. Coates refers to as the "Black Body" in this book). They then, in turn, use that identity portrayal to subjugate their reading audiences into either expressing feelings of empathy/melancholy/anger(in the case of Black readers) or sympathy/guilt (in the case of White readers). This type of emotionally driven tactic is not really new in the subject matter it tackles or even the narrative strategy it uses to broach the subject matter (James Baldwin and Derrick Bell have written similar things decades prior, though I would also contend in the case of Baldwin that he was far more thoughtful and inclusive in his prose and less of a thrall to a certain brand of racial anger that corrupts the integrity of writers like Coates). Even the idea of there being some kind of metaphorical curtain between the world of Whites and Blacks is something that rings eerily similar to W.E.B Dubois' concept of "the veil" that he spoke to in his psuedo-memoir, "The Souls of Black People", written over 100 years ago. Same with the concept of "the struggle" for liberation being more noble and virtuous than actually achieving liberation itself, thus perpetuating a noble victim narrative that prevents the people it claims to advocate for from actually moving beyond their noble victim status. Save for a few exceptions, these types of books rarely ever tackle the full scope of the cultural issues at play within these given communities, and, in many instances, responsibility for the actions of given individuals within these topical communities are usually framed in such a way as to rob said individuals from having any agency over their own internal decision making processes. Rather, the contention generally ends up being that it is the fault of the legacy systems that put these community individuals in these situations to begin with, and, as such, the benefactors of the installers of these legacy systems need to work to correct past errors (usually in the form of reparations for slavery, prison/police reform, etc). However, this kind of thinking reduces the problem down into binary, making Whites (or the Dreamers as Coates consistently refers to them in this book) the privileged oppressors and Blacks the noble oppressed, which accomplishes its mission of making the perceived problem more palatable to convey to its intended audiences, but also serves in robbing the issue of its cultural complexity and displays the issue in a light that is, in my opinion, intellectually dishonest in its presentation. That all being said, I would not tell people to not read authors like Ta-Nahisi Coats or Ibram X. Kendi, as I think embracing a diverse array of viewpoints is important. I would, however, highly recommend they read, what I would consider to be, more qualified contemporary social commentators and field experts like Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, John McWorter, Glenn Lowry, Thomas Chatterton Williams and Coleman Hughes first.
reflective
medium-paced