Between the World and Me

I'm white, male, and have very little understanding or appreciation for black culture. My parents and siblings all watched Roots when I was about 8 years old. I encountered some black sailors when I was in the U.S. Navy - in fact, I had a roommate for six months or so that was a black male, but we maybe spoke a hundred words during that time. This book came recommended by a quasi-stranger, not for it's content but for its structure: letters from a father to a son. I'd mentioned that I was interested in writing that sort of book, and this was a resulting recommendation. I read a few reviews before buying it. Not the sort of book I'd otherwise pick up. After ordering it, I heard the author on NPR - without knowing it was the author of the book, mind you - and I thought "wow, this guy is really interesting, provocative, well-spoken, intellectually sound, and speaks from a world that I can only see from afar." So when the show host said his name, I knew I had to pick up the book and read it soon. I had that opportunity within days, on a flight to Atlanta, my first visit there in maybe fifteen years. I got through about 110 pages on the flight and it was perfect timing. Atlanta is a sea of black compared to most everywhere I've lived. Instantly, I could try and appreciate my surroundings in way that I'd never been able to before. Did I feel "white guilt"? Sure. I do. I've seen racism my whole life, especially toward black. This book, however, did much more than rekindle strong feelings of being a winner of Powerball proportions in the life lottery. It challenged me so fundamentally and starkly in a way that I have never been challenged, reading a book, in my life. At times I felt compelled to put the book down, that it was just conjuring up too much weight of history that I wanted to put back out of sight. But I kept going. Finishing it, I felt, like apparently many others do, that this should be required reading for every American. Even those outside of the USA will benefit from it, as it will certainly illuminate the tension and schizophrenia and contradictions and rewritten history of our country. I hope Mr. Coates continues writing until he draws his final breath.

great book delivered quickly (like two days after ordered), in perfect condition. it’s small but perfect purse/backpack sized doesn’t take up much room, also a good read

I have concluded that all books fall into three large categories: 1) books I like, 2) books that are good, and 3) books that are important. Not all books I like are important. Not all good books I like. Not all important books are necessarily good. Coates’ work, however, lives in the uncommon intersection of these groupings. Clearly, as a winner of the National Book Award, it is important…Coates is perhaps THE leading voice in the contemporary discussion of race in America. Furthermore, the book is very good. Coates writes with uncommon power and clarity. I felt myself drawn into his stories of growing up black in West Baltimore, an experience which is complete foreign to a white kid from rural Nebraska, but Coates succeeded in making that reality come alive for me. And, finally, at the end of the day, I have to say I liked the book. There’s an honesty here that is difficulty to match (and impossible to fake). Whatever else may be said of the book, it is clear that Coates is telling you what he really thinks; those who would accuse him of simply touting a “party line” haven’t read him well, I would say. Having said all that, there are aspects of the book that bothered me and, at the risk of sounding as if I’m exercising “white privilege,” there were arguments that were less-than-convincing. If I read Coates correctly, he treats the “American Dream” as the classical form of “white privilege.” Though that is not really made all that clear; the book would have benefited from greater clarity on that point. Of course, this is not a book addressed to “white” folk; it is a series of letters addressed to his son. There’s probably no need in that context to define “white privilege” when it is a shared reality. Coates’ critique of the education system also fell a bit flat. To be fair, Coates admits that he “resents” the schools more than the other challenges of growing up in the inner city. Though attending Howard University was clearly one of his most formative experiences), education—especially elementary education—is just another form of “shackling” (his image) black bodies. In a book so incredibly well-written, the point seems a little disingenuous. Nearly every page reveals how Coates’ intelligence and education has served to liberate his thinking, allowing him to broach the nagging questions of racism and white privilege from entirely new angles. Finally, and most concerning to me as a Christian theologian, is Coates’ outright rejection of religion and spirituality. He says early on (just after his tirade against education): “I could not retreat, as did so many, into the church and its mysteries. My parents rejected all dogmas. We spurned the holidays marketed by the people who wanted to be white. We would not stand for their anthems. We would not kneel before their God. And so I had no sense that any just God was on my side.” He heartbreakingly concludes (reversing the words of King): “My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos and then concluded in a box.” These naturalistic presumptions permeate the work to the point that, if one disagrees with them, it becomes quite obvious that one must find an entirely different approach to the issues than the approach Coates espouses here. Though he fails to recognize it, Coates has precluded all grounds for hope and lost all sense of the future. There simply is the physical present. His advice to his son is reduced to survival tips. The sense that the world can be changed—even bettered—is extraordinarily thin, when it is present at all. Even as I write this, I wonder again why it is that I even liked this book, given that I disagree with Coates at the most fundamental level about the nature of human reality. I believe there are a couple interconnected reasons. First, there are some incredibly tender, moving moments in Coates’ addresses to his son. Though Coates has a formidable mind, it is clear that he is writing here from his heart. And even when his arguments do not convince, his love for his son still sways the heart. Secondly, Coates is incredibly honest; there’s a “calling it like I see it” quality here that is refreshing. He’s not concerned about “convincing” anyone he’s right (perhaps because he thinks white folk are too ensnared in the system of “white privilege” to ever find their way out); he simply lays out what he’s seen in his time in America for others to consider…and let the chips fall where they may. As I read, I could imagine several good friends of mine reading the same passage and throwing the book across the room in disgust. But I would still encourage them to read it, to consider what is said, to try for a few moments to inhabit this perspective on the world. Not because I think Coates has “the” answer to racial injustice in America but because he has moved the conversation along. Because of Coates, we can carry forward a more honest discussion about race in America, with the core issues more clearly defined. For that reason alone, this is a book everyone should like.

Ta Nehisi Coates has written a modern classic. It is about race, but not quite; it is about growing up and raising your own child under the shadow of inter-generational trauma; it is about so much more, I can only urge you to read it. A sample passage: "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. I have not spent my time studying the problem of “race”—“race” itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem. You see this from time to time when some dullard—usually believing himself white—proposes that the way forward is a grand orgy of black and white, ending only when we are all beige and thus the same “race.” But a great number of “black” people already are beige. 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 rights. [...]"

It is a view into another world and culture. When you reside or grow up in cosmopolitan cultures like those of the Arabian Gulf, it is hard to know the kinds of lifelong fears and doubts that many African Americans experience from a young age.

Un livre essentiel pour mieux comprendre la place du corps noir dans la société américaine contemporaine. Dérangeant et profond.Un livre pour s'interroger sur ce que signifie être humain. C'est un livre qui questionne tous nos clichés concernant la question de la couleur avec grâce, intelligence et puissance et qui donne envie de relire "Homme invisible, pour qui chantes-tu ? " de Ralph Ellison

Doloroso y triste, pero al mismo tiempo hermoso, en esta carta hacia su propio hijo, Coates analiza la situación racial de Estados Unidos desde un enfoque muy personal. El libro escrito de manera magistral te hace sentir la rabia sobre las injusticias vividas por los afroamericanos solo por el color de la piel. Recomendadisima.

Excelente