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A review by bookstolivewith
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.0
“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good... This is the foundation of the Dream — its adherents must not just believe in it but believe that it is just, believe that their possession of the Dream is the natural result of grit, honor and good works... To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and unknown. It is still too difficult for most Americans to do this. But that is your work. It must be, if only to preserve the sanctity of your mind.”
Between The World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son as he enters teenage-hood, a letter that embraces all aspects of being a Black man in America — all the highs and lows. Coates reminisces on his and his son’s differences (in their upbringings, and in their Americas, among other things) and yet how there are still dangerous similarities that threaten them everyday, both as a young Black teenager and an adult Black man. Coates is Baldwin’s inheritor in many aspects (more on this later) but his language and the situations he presents are more accessible, and more modern for the “younger” reader — if Baldwin should be an immediate addition to all college courses, Between The World and Me should 100% be taught in high schools. It’s understandable and important, which already makes it better than 85% of what I read in high school.
This book has not left my mind since I finished it and I think it’s a positive thing that I am constantly hearing Coates’ words in my head, that it’s forcing me to reexamine things I had long thought, even if they were thought and learned somewhat unconsciously. I am ashamed to say that I owned this book for over a year before I picked it up, and that what spurned me to pick it up was the death(s) of Black men, which are described in this book. I was too scared of what I might find, which is a privilege in and of itself.
I am certain that Coates has become a must-read, must-buy, pre-order author for me, and I can’t wait to work my way through the rest of his fiction and non-fiction work.
Read. This. Book.
Between The World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ letter to his son as he enters teenage-hood, a letter that embraces all aspects of being a Black man in America — all the highs and lows. Coates reminisces on his and his son’s differences (in their upbringings, and in their Americas, among other things) and yet how there are still dangerous similarities that threaten them everyday, both as a young Black teenager and an adult Black man. Coates is Baldwin’s inheritor in many aspects (more on this later) but his language and the situations he presents are more accessible, and more modern for the “younger” reader — if Baldwin should be an immediate addition to all college courses, Between The World and Me should 100% be taught in high schools. It’s understandable and important, which already makes it better than 85% of what I read in high school.
This book has not left my mind since I finished it and I think it’s a positive thing that I am constantly hearing Coates’ words in my head, that it’s forcing me to reexamine things I had long thought, even if they were thought and learned somewhat unconsciously. I am ashamed to say that I owned this book for over a year before I picked it up, and that what spurned me to pick it up was the death(s) of Black men, which are described in this book. I was too scared of what I might find, which is a privilege in and of itself.
I am certain that Coates has become a must-read, must-buy, pre-order author for me, and I can’t wait to work my way through the rest of his fiction and non-fiction work.
Read. This. Book.