Review: Coates, Between the World and Me (2015)

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is an autobiography, written as a letter to his fifteen-year-old son, talking about how dangerous and damaging racism is to the literal, physical bodies of Black people. He is talking especially about Black men, especially YOUNG Black men, the specific group into which his son is emerging and who disproportionately end up incarcerated or dead. He's also talking about the toxic nature of the American Dream, which silently reinscribes racism in the way that it lets one side of the equation (white people) simply ignore the existence of the other side (Black people) as they strive selfishly toward an implicitly white-only utopia. (Black people have no such luxury about white people.) The Dream is the thing that white fragility (cf. Robin diAngelo) is there to protect, the unspeakably privileged ability NOT TO KNOW.

This is beautifully written and deeply thought-provoking.



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