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A review by youngthespian42
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
3.0
I really struggle with my relationship with this book. I do not believe that authorial intention matters and this book hit me at the right time in the uprising for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd in my hometown of Minneapolis.
This book spoke to me on an emotional and human level. It is written so poetically and brutally that I do think is captures a lot of the emotional experience of being Black in America and dealing with our challenging legacy of race.
That being said it feels like this book has taken on a life of the face of the fervor of anti-racism. A large group of people in the anti-racism coalition have taken this book up as nonfiction or pure factual. While this book references historical events I find it pretty intellectually lacking in rigor. In a world where Howard Zinn's People History of the United States exists, or the excellent documentary Exterminate all the Brutes by Raoul Peck it feels offensive to pass this book off as scholarly work.
While I find this book is culturally relevant and immensely powerful I am concerned with the context it is being spread around in.
This book spoke to me on an emotional and human level. It is written so poetically and brutally that I do think is captures a lot of the emotional experience of being Black in America and dealing with our challenging legacy of race.
That being said it feels like this book has taken on a life of the face of the fervor of anti-racism. A large group of people in the anti-racism coalition have taken this book up as nonfiction or pure factual. While this book references historical events I find it pretty intellectually lacking in rigor. In a world where Howard Zinn's People History of the United States exists, or the excellent documentary Exterminate all the Brutes by Raoul Peck it feels offensive to pass this book off as scholarly work.
While I find this book is culturally relevant and immensely powerful I am concerned with the context it is being spread around in.