Table of Contents
Introduction
The author Ta-Nehisi Coates concentrated the deep-rooted racial problems of America and showing it by the form of a letter from a father to his son. He told his son all kinds of injuries that he had suffered for a long time as a black man, and how black people should learn to adapt to the real society. In his book he states a world that the absolute fear of black people, the invasion and insult of the will of state power to black people, the unreliable narration of black history and the gap of racism, which in his perspective to show the race difference in his generation.
In recent years, Coates’ work is a masterpiece to explore the topic of American race. First, he explored the reasons for the separation of the black world from the white world. He claims that “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”.
Coates regards black flesh as the focus of racial violence for generations. He describes how black people living in America are worried about their bodies, their children and their families. For him, destroying human body is destroying human spirit. In his book, Coates sums up “American history of violence against black people.”. This way of treating black people is mainly reflected in the harm to black people’s bodies and their worries about their own bodies.
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Summary of Content
Between the world and me is divided into three parts. In the first part, the author narrates the reason why he created this book. From an interview, he talked about the huge differences between the black world and the white world, and about the long-standing racial discrimination in the United States. In the same week, he witnessed his son’s outrage at the acquittal of the man who killed black Michael Brown and he wrote the long letter to his 15-year-old son. When Coates saw his son’s strong reaction, he didn’t try to comfort him, but he did what his parents had done, which was to tell him, ”
That this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”
In the second part of the work, Coates looks back on the shock brought by the news that little Jones was killed by the police. Little Jones was shot dead by police while visiting his fiancée in Northern Virginia, when he was just a few steps from his fiancée’s home. The police who killed him think he as a suspect in drug trafficking and followed him from Maryland. This policy he was eventually acquitted. The whole incident inflamed Coates for a long time. He stressed that black people, especially black men need to be vigilant at all time when they face violence.
The third part begins with the story of Mabel Jones, the mother of the murdered young Jones. Jones, the daughter of a black tenant, became a famous doctor through her personal struggle. She not only changed her social status, but also created a comfortable living environment for her children, enabling them to enjoy the privileges of attending private schools and traveling to Europe. Nevertheless, her son, Jones junior, was followed as a drug dealer by a plainclothes policeman and shot for no reason. Coates asserted that racial tragedy would affect all black people, even those with rich families. The most shocking thing is that the policeman who killed Prince was also a black man. It can be seen that the idea of white hegemony has been deeply rooted in the society, not only limited to white people, but also made it irrelevant to deprive black people of their lives. In view of this, Coates said, “here is what I would like for you to know: in America, it is traditional to destroy the black body-it is heritage”. Coates expressed strong indignation at the innocent death of his friends and the abuse of violence by the police. For Coates, these killings represent the historical force of American society in operation, which makes black men and women enslaved, their families and bodies destroyed, and huge social injustice persist.
Analysis and Evaluation of the Book
“The United States created an empire based on its ‘racial’ view, a lie that harmed the flesh of all people, especially black men and women. The black body has experienced the ravages of slavery and apartheid, but it still suffers from unfair threats, imprisonment and even murder. So how does it feel to live in a black body? How to find the way to live in the black body. Between the world and me is Coates’s thinking and searching for the answer to this question.
In his book, Coates deconstructs the history of contemporary American race concept. Starting from his own experience and the history of black race, he attacked the current popular theories about race relations in the United States and tried to build a new concept of race. Coates stressed that race is not a purely physiological concept, not because some people have the same skin color or the same physical characteristics. They are combined because they are also oppressed under the pressure of the American dream. They are combined by the language, behavior, food, music, literature and philosophy used in their creation under the pressure of the American dream. Therefore, what separates the black world from the white world is not the inherent characteristics of black people, but the real harm brought to black people by insisting on naming black people. “In America, the injury is not being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a roader nose, but is everything that happens after”. It’s white society that makes black Americans race.
Coates talked about the difference between the lives of white people living in suburban houses and the violent siege of the west Baltimore, where he grew up. In the area where he lives, danger is everywhere, fear is everywhere. He knew it, and all black people knew it. Instead of beautifying the reality and concealing the racial contradictions, Coates presents the unavoidable phenomenon in the American social system to the readers. In his book, Coates reveals the cruel reality that black Americans must face. A black father can’t really protect his son from harm, but he wants his son to keep his head clear.
Coates’s judgment on the reality of American society is right to the point. Although American society has made great progress, there are still huge racial differences in income and wealth, and systematic racial discrimination in public policies and personal practices in employment, housing, education and other fields is also continuing.
Conclusion & Recommendation
The author chooses to write this book in letter style shorten the distance between the author and the reader and brings a kind of intimacy to the work. Although the book is a letter from the author to his son, it is also a letter to all Americans, including white people. It flows the author’s true feelings, and the overwhelming one is the author’s great fatherly love for his son and his strong feelings of being a black man. Coates combined his own experience and feelings to show the reality of racial discrimination in the United States.
The work is full of personal narrative based on the author’s own experience. He shares with his son and readers how he realized his position in the world and the position of black people in American society through his experience. He described his childhood full of violence and fear in Baltimore, Howard University as “spiritual Mecca”, his journey to the battlefield of civil war, and his trip to France that influenced the formation of his world outlook. These experiences enabled him to recognize the world according to its real face, and thus to understand the real identity of African Americans. While reading their personal experiences, readers have deepened their understanding of American society.
