Table of Contents
Black Embodiment
Coates is an author, Journalist, and Writer. Coates wrote this book to put people in the minds of colored people or even people who faced or are facing hatred due to the fact of what they look like. The class they are labeled as. Even how hard it is just to call themselves colored. The main focus was on how people saw embodiment and how they dealt with being belittled or put in situations that may or may not harm themselves.
Coates constantly tangled with the theme of black bodies, how hard it is to live within one. During the time that he addressed, shows that race mattered and racism took a strong reason in developing a placement for everyone. Blacks and people with color were at the bottom of the class. They were labeled as uneducated, not wealthy, low status, and powerless.
Coates stated “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 “race” (Frankish, Italian, German, Irish) later abandoned because they no longer serve their purpose– the organization of people beneath, and beyond, the umbrella of rights. (Coates,pg115) that shows that people were left behind because they were not fit for survival in the new era. The new “era” still had hard times and racism got even worse.
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Slavery forced many to be oppressed to work on farms and develop the mindset that there is no other way to live happy under the rules that were displayed or enforced. This also led to the present day and hatred of blacks is currently still around but only in certain places in the world. Some may believe that racism doesn’t exist anymore and people are just oppressing themselves by focusing on problems.
Coates digs deep into the Stage of how difficult it was growing up and how people around him were looked down on and how they got little to no respect at all. There was a section in the book that points out how racism can even affect the mindset of blacks to avoid being with their own counterparts.
“Perhaps it was the boys out there, who were in fact black, telling her she was “pretty for a dark-skin girl”-(Coates,page117). Some black people feel like just because their skin is darker means that they are looked down on, so they avoid being with their own race or interacting in general. This comes from a far fetch argument about how a black couple and a biracial couple get treated.
The black couple will get looked down on just because people feel like they might not be rich or capable of achieving that status. On the other hand, a biracial couple automatically gets treated with respect and high praise. Even if they are not highly educated or wealthy. That shows that this world or so-called new age era is not fixed and the color of your skin can depict where you are placed in life during certain situations.
Coates talked about a guy named prince jones, Prince was not a low class nor was he uneducated in any way or sort but he was racially profiled by police and killed due to the fact that he was a black man. Blacks are told that if they do things right they will not face any trouble.
After all, racism does not truly exist and anyone who is wealthy and educated ought to be fine. This is completely negated by Prince’s death. They tried to carry out this but it couldn’t be active because the prince was exactly what they claimed was the perfect black person. He was killed anyways out of judgment instead of logic.
There were no cameras or someone to record what went down, so there was no evidence that he could use to get justice for his friend’s death at the time. He also stated that in this era of time people are quick to record with phones and cameras are everywhere to be seen. Coates is an atheist but still believed that the soul can not survive without a body to be attached to.
Coates also believes that people that are wrongfully harmed, incarcerated for a crime that they did not do, will not rest in peace in the afterlife. Coates did not believe in redemption or justice after death. “The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are destructible-that is precisely why they are so precious.”
At this point coast started to view embodiment from a different perspective than just racism, when he was at Harvard University he came across some black people with different styles of dressing and hairstyles that most noncolor people would have or attempt to do. That helped them feel more comfortable, attractive, and confident in their own skin.
That gave him a sense of strength knowing that through all the hard times and being racially profiled for being black, Blacks still felt proud of who they are and their unique look and abilities to still be happy and feel beautiful.
Coates still feels scared for his son growing up in a world where he will be judged or could get hurt just for being a certain skin tone. So black embodiment means to be comfortable with who you are and loving yourself when no one else will. Not letting anyone put you in a situation where you have to act or be someone you choose not to be.
The implications of being in a black body are that you do not know what may happen if you get pulled over by a cop or arrested just because they suspect something. Overall being low class does not mean you have to stay in that situation all your life.
Work cited
- “A Quote from Between the World and Me.” Goodreads, Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/quotes/7572002-the-spirit-and-soul-are-the-body-and-brain-which.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppression
- https://www.gradesaver.com/between-the-world-and-me/study-guide/quotes#coates-p-77 Coates, Ta-Nehisi, and Klaus Amann.
- Between the World and Me. Reclam, 2017.pg 77-117
- LitCharts. “Black Bodies Theme Analysis.”
- LitCharts, www.litcharts.com/lit/between-the-world-and-me/themes/black-bodies
