Amazing. Wise. Heartbreaking. Important.

“I don’t ever want to lose sight of how short my time is here. And I don’t ever want to forget that resistance must be its own reward, since resistance, at least within the lifespan of the resistors, almost always fails. I don’t ever want to forget, even with whatever personal victories I achieve, even in the victories we achieve as a people or a nation, that the larger story of America and world probably does not end well. Our story is a tragedy. I know it sounds odd, but that believe does not depress me. It focuses me. After all, I am an atheist and thus do not believe anything, even a strongly held belief is destiny. And if tragedy is to be proven wrong, if there really is hope out there, I think it can only be made manifest by remembering the cost of it being proved right. No one - not our fathers, not our police and not our gods - is coming to save us. The worst really is possible. My aim is to never be caught, as the rappers say, acting like it can’t happen. And my ambition is to write both in defiance of tragedy and in blindness of its possibility, to keep screaming into the waves - just as my ancestors did.” Pg 289-90

“In 2001, a researcher sent out black and white job applicants in Milwaukee, randomly assigning them a criminal record. The researcher concluded that a white man with s criminal record chad about the same chance of getting a job as a black man without one. Three years later, researchers produced the same results in New York under more rigorous conditions.” Pg 28

“What we are now witnessing is not some new and complicated expression of white racism - rather, it’s the dying embers of the same old racism that once rendered the best picking of America the exclusive province of unblackness. Confronted by the thoroughly racialized backlash to Obama’s presidency, a stranger to American politics might concluded that Obama provoked the response by relentlessly pushing an agenda of radical racial reform. Hardly...Obama talked less about race then any other Democratic president since 1961.” Pg 134-5

“In a democracy, so the saying goes, the people get the government they deserve. Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a county so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.” Pg 147

“With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin. The resulting conflagration has been devastating.” Pg 174

“The early American economy was built on slave labor. The Capitol and the White House were built by sales. Prudent James K. Polk traded sales from the Oval Office. The laments about “black pathology,” the criticism of black family structures by pundits and intellectuals, ring hollow in a country whose existence was predicated on the torture of black fathers, on the rape of black mothers, on the sale of black children. An honest assessment of America’s relationship to the black family reveals the country to be not it’s nurturer but its destroyer.” Pg 201

“Perhaps no number can fully capture the multi-century plunder of black people in America. Perhaps the number is so large that it can’t be imagined, let alone calculated and dispensed. But I believe that wrestling publicly with these questions matters as much as - if not more than - the specific answers that might be produced. An America that asked what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future. More important than any single check cut to any African American, the payment of reparations would represent America’s maturation out of the childhood myth of its innocence and into a wisdom worthy of its founders.” Pg 207

“Deindustrialization had presented an employment problem for America’s poor and working class of all races. Prison presented a solution: jobs for whites, and warehousing for blacks.” Pg 258



“Obama’s greatest misstep was born directly out of his greatest insight. Only Obama, a black man who emerged from the best of white America, and the could sincerely trust white America, could be so certain that he could achieve broad national appeal. And yet only a black man with that same biography could underestimate his opposition's resolve the destroy him.” Pg 324

“That movement [the rise of the so called “Tea Party”] came in to full bloom in the summer of 2015 with the candidacy of Donald Trump, a man who’d risen to political prominence by peddling the racist myth that the president was not American. It was birthirism - not trade, not jobs, not isolationism - that launched Trump’s foray into electoral policies. Having risen unexpectedly on this basis into the stratosphere of Republican Policies, Trump spent the campaign freely and liberally trafficking in misogyny, Islamophobia, and xenophobia. And on November 8, 2016, he won election to the presidency. Historians will spend the next century analyzing how a country with such allegedly grand democratic traditions was, so swiftly and easily, brought to the brink of fascism. But one needn’t stretch too far to conclude that an eight-year campaign of consistent and open racism aimed at the leader of the free world helped clear the way.” Pg 332

“To Trump whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas his forebears carried whiteness like an ancestral talisman, Trump cracked the glowing amulet open, releasing its elderitch energies. The repercussions are striking: Trump is the first president to have served in no public capacity before ascending to his perch. Perhaps more important, Trump is the first president to have publicly affirmed that is daughter is a ‘piece of ass.’ The mind seizes trying to imagine a black man extolling the virtues of sexual assault on tape (‘And when you're a star, they let you do it’), fending off multiple accusations of said assaults, becoming immersed in multiple lawsuits for allegedly fraudulent business dealings, exhorting his followers to violence, and then strolling into the White House. But that is the point of white supremacy - to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (and particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. Barack Obama delivered to black people the hoary message that in working twice as hard as white people, anything is possible. But Trump’s counter is persuasive - work half as hard as black people and even more is possible.” Pg 343

“ ...voters in their study who supported Trump generally had higher mean household incomes...than those who did not. Those who approved of Trump were ‘less likely to be unemployed and less likely to be employed part-time’ than those who did not. They also tended to be from areas that were very white: ‘The racial and ethnic isolation of whites at the zip code level is one of the strongest predictors of Trump support.” Pg 346

“‘I could strand in the middle of FIfth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,’ Trump once bragged. This statement should be met with only a modicum of doubt. Trump mocked the disabled, bragged of sexual assault, endured multiple accusations of sexual assault, fired an FBI director, sent his minions to mislead the public about his motives, personally exposed that lie by boldly stating his aim to scuttle an investigation into his possible collusion with a foreign power, then bragged about that same obstruction in the White House to representatives of that same foreign power. It is utterly impossible to conjure a black facsimile of Donald Trump - to imagine Obama, say, implicating an opponent’s father in the assassination of an American president, or comparing his physical endowment with that of another candidate and successfully capturing the presidency. Trump, more than an other politician, understood the valence of the bloody heirloom and the great power in not being a nigger.” Pg 364

I found the first four years of essays fascinating as an exploration of a man and a writer finding his footing and his voice, but I found Years 5 ("Fear of a Black President") and 6 ("The Case for Reparations") to be some of the best essay writing I've had the pleasure of reading.

This essay collection was enhanced for me by having just read [b: Just Mercy|20342617|Just Mercy A Story of Justice and Redemption|Bryan Stevenson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635827409l/20342617._SY75_.jpg|28323940] and [b: The Color of Law|32191706|The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America|Richard Rothstein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493422076l/32191706._SY75_.jpg|52832599]. I think, five years ago, "The Case for Reparations" would have been entirely mind-blowing to me. Reading this in 2022 after the summer of 2020, it just reads as an excellently-crafted argument for the only option to begin righting the wrongs our nation is built upon.

Some of the passages I found to be most moving (setting aside Coates' insightful analysis) were on...
The American mythos being fundamentally rooted in white supremacy:
[Pages 211-5]

I now knew that the line dividing black and white America was neither phenotypical, nor cultural, nor even genetic. In fact, there was no line at all, no necessary division of any kind. We were not two sides of a coin. We were not the photonegative of each other. To be black in America was to be plundered. To be white was to benefit from, and at times directly execute, this plunder. No national conversation, no invocations to love, no moral appeals, no pleas for "sensitivity" and "diversity," no lamenting of "race relations" could make this right. Racism was banditry, pure and simple. And the banditry was not incidental to America, it was essential to it.

[...] The need for purpose and community, for mission, is human. [...] The popular notion that America is so exceptional in its virtue that even its invasions are alchemized into liberations lends meaning to the political lives of citizens. [...] [Political leaders] are awarding virtue and meaning to one group by warring upon another. White supremacy is a crime and a lie, but it's also a machine that generates meaning. This existential grift, as much as anything, is the source of its enormous, centuries-spanning power.

[Page 289]

I believed that the answer to the question of the color line was right in front of us. Rob a people generationally and there will be effects. I also understood why that answer, barring extreme external events, would never be accepted and reckoned with. It simply broke too much of America's sense of its own identity.

This one strikes me particularly because of the context of the summer of 2020 that appeared to awaken to consciousness a huge number of white people to structural racism and ongoing harms. "External events" as Coates mentioned involved the attempted coup on 1/6/2020, climate-change-fueled apocalyptic wildfires in California, COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, and the high-profile lynchings of several black people (Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Daniel Prude, Rayshard Brooks, among others) in the spring and summer of 2020: These things combined incited racial riots and protests country-wide. MANY white people seemed to "wake up" to the violence and enduring power of white supremacy in the United States. Some have reverted to "business as usual" but others are continuing to learn.

The spirit of defiance in the face of tragedy:
[Pages 109-112]

There was a time when I believed in an arc of cosmic justice, that good acts were rewarded and bad deeds punished, if not in my lifetime, then in the by-the-by. [...] I would like to believe in God. I simply can't. The reasons are physical. When I was nine, some kid beat me up for amusement, and when I came home crying to my father, his answer--Fight that boy or fight me--was godless, because it told me that there was no justice in the world, save the justice we dish out with our own hands. [...] I understood: No one, not my father, not the cops, and certainly not anyone's God, was coming to save me.

Nothing in the record of human history argues for divine mortality, and a great deal argues against it. What we know is that good people very often suffer terribly, while the perpetrators of horrific evil backstroke through all the pleasures of the world. There is no evidence that the score is ever evened in this life or any after. [...] Life was short, and death undefeated. So I loved hard, since I would not love for long. So I loved directly and fixed myself to solid things--my wife, my child, my family, health, work, friends.

I found, in this fixed and godless love, something cosmic and spiritual nonetheless. [...] All of these heroes [of black rights] had failed to cajole and coerce the masters of America. Their ambition of a better world had been frustrated. This was the story of my ancestors, the story I expected for myself. These were not stories of hope, but were they without import? [...] they had succeeded in living by their own. And that was all they could control. [...] The lessons they passed down were not about an abstract hope, an unknowable dram. They were about the power and necessity of immediate defiance.

[...] I too would gather my words and scream into the roaring waves, because to scream was to defy the story, and that defiance had meaning, no matter that the waves kept coming, would come, maybe, forever. The masters could lie to themselves, lie to the world, but they would never force me to lie to myself. [...] The world might fall off a cliff, but I did not have to be among those pushing it and more, I did not have to nod along while fools insisted that gravity was debatable.

[Pages 289]

[...] There is something demeaning about repeatedly yelling "I am a human" in a world premised on denying that fact. [...] I don't ever want to forget that resistance must be its own reward, since resistance, at least within the life span of the resistors, almost always fails. [...] Our story is a tragedy. I know it sounds odd, but that belief does not depress me. It focuses me. After all, I am an atheist and thus do not believe anything, even a strongly held belief, is destiny. And if tragedy is to be proven wrong, if there really is hope out there, I think it can only be made manifest by remembering the cost of it being proven right.

Outstanding Exposition on the Criminality of Whiteness

I received a powerful lesson on the history of whiteness and racism in America in this reading. Coates is an amazing writer and has researched well this country's original sin of slavery. He nearly tied so much of what slavery produced to the affection black people labor against everyday. His writing is clear, logical, and very thought provoking. I highly recommend it but if you do decide to embark on this journey, bring a notepad!!! There is so much to learn from Mr. Coates in these pages.

Out of the many words Coates used to describe the eight years of Obama’s presidency, I cannot come up with one to describe the profound gravity of the analysis of this book. It took me over a year to read it because this book is a text of pure study. I so appreciate how Coates defines each year of Obama’s presidency and aligns it with highlighted articles from his time and work for The Atlantic. On page 337, Coates says, “I still want Obama to be right. I still would like to fold myself into the dream. This will not be possible.” Coates takes Obama’s optimism (written like Voltaire) as the yen to Trump’s yang...the light before the darkness.

I’m left wondering about the true “friendship” that may be between Coates and Obama. I felt Coates urge you want to shake Obama during trying moments in American history to say, “WAKE UP BLACK MAN!!” “The Case for Reparations,” “Fear of a Black President,” “...Mass Incarceration” are by far my favorite articles here. I could go on...but just like Coates other works, I will be reading this in the future, especially as we experience presidents to come....

I reread Between the World and Me, and wanted more. This is much more in depth, and absolutely pulls no punches. I don't think I knew quite what I was getting into. it made me mad, sad, frustrated ... lots of things, but mostly aware. I was unusually compelled to take notes as I read, so if you wish, you can read my notes on his notes and essays:

I remember when Cosby made those wild speeches. I remember feeling that he was off-base. White America should be held accountable for perpetuating racial inequality. On the other hand, we are naive if we think they'll rectify it. Those of us, black or white, who recognize it have to mobilize. That's the only way it will change, and it won't be easy. Does Cosby inadvertently nullify his own argument? His celebrity millionaire status has protected him from serious rape charges - lots of them! Wouldn't these rapes "embarrass his mother" as he put it? Yet he blames lower & lower-mid economic black people for racial disparity? I'm bothered by the notion that "we" accept all races and cultures... if they assimilate. That's not acceptance.

On "boxing himself out" by writing on race:
"The notion that writing about race, which is to say, the force of white supremacy, is marginal and provincial is itself parcel to white supremacy, premised on the notion that the foundational crimes of this country are mostly irrelevant to its existence."

"Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broad scepticism toward others."

If you read The Case for Reparations and are unaffected, get a CAT scan to make sure you have a heart and soul.

"Perhaps after a serious discussion and debate - the kind that HR 40 proposes - we may find that the country can never fully repay African Americans. But we stand to discover much about ourselves in such a discussion - and that is perhaps what scares us."

"When the homophobe says that same-sex marriage will alter the definition of marriage, he is still a homophobe but he is not a liar. The right of exclusion is part of his definition of an institution that is vital for him and gives his life meaning."

In The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration:
"Describing the Nixon campaign's strategy for assembling enough votes to win the 1972 election, Nixon's aide John Ehrlichman later wrote, "We'll go after the racists... That subliminal appeal to the antiblack voter was always in Nixon's statements and speeches on schools and housing."

Chilling

"Every trump voter is most certainly not a white supremacist, just as every white person in the Jim Crow south was not a white supremacist. But every trump voter felt it acceptable to hand the fate of the country over to one."

Despite all that Coates wrote, I miss Obama. Whatever his terms as our first black president meant for our progress against racism, I would rather fight that fight with him at the helm instead of our present shit show.

An important read for white people wanting to be a better ally in the fight against racism.

A series of essays written for The Atlantic, with new introductions and autobiographical additions from Coates. As with everything else he writes, they're all a must read.

Above all, it must be said that essay #6 "The Case for Reparations," is itself a five-star with an exclamation point. Coates near the end of this book agrees that it was his best writing. Interview and essay. Fantastic piece. I couldn't get through a paragraph without stopping to share aloud what I had just learned.

Then read #8 "My President Was Black," and then #2 "American Girl" about Michelle. These three essays stand out to me in this order after finishing this gauntlet of a book over three weeks.