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A review by afreen7
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4.0
This book was empowering. I Am not gonna use the word 'enlightening' because racism is something everyone should already be aware of. It isn't a new concept.
But coming from the viewpoint of a POC father writing to his son, telling him all of his ideals, experiences and beliefs was certainly a different way of hearing about the topic.
I liked his comparison of being black then and now and what it meant to different generations- the danger that persisted not only at the hands of the whites but also on the streets; his writing on slavery and how no act of peace or progress will ever erase the sacrifice of even a single life lost, was undeniably the truth.
“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”
Coates was so brutally honest about his views, that it was almost refreshing to read about the injustice done without the safeguards used by a lot of people so as to not arouse 'controversies'. Especially his use of the word 'bodies' enforced the reality.
“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
But despite his repeated message that non-violence is not a guaranteed solution to abolishing racism, he counters it by saying that there is a time and place for everything.
But coming from the viewpoint of a POC father writing to his son, telling him all of his ideals, experiences and beliefs was certainly a different way of hearing about the topic.
I liked his comparison of being black then and now and what it meant to different generations- the danger that persisted not only at the hands of the whites but also on the streets; his writing on slavery and how no act of peace or progress will ever erase the sacrifice of even a single life lost, was undeniably the truth.
“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”
Coates was so brutally honest about his views, that it was almost refreshing to read about the injustice done without the safeguards used by a lot of people so as to not arouse 'controversies'. Especially his use of the word 'bodies' enforced the reality.
“But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”
But despite his repeated message that non-violence is not a guaranteed solution to abolishing racism, he counters it by saying that there is a time and place for everything.