Questions About Between the World and Me

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about Between the World and Me, please sign up.

Answered Questions (23)

The flyleaf posits that this book "offers a transcendent vision for a way forward." While Coates insists on self-interrogation, education, solidarity, and awareness as survival strategies, I did not find a "transcendent way forward." Some help please?

Robert Westbrook I am not sure that Coates ever offers a "way forward." I don't think that's within the scope of the book. I think his aim was most of all to throw a b…moreI am not sure that Coates ever offers a "way forward." I don't think that's within the scope of the book. I think his aim was most of all to throw a brutally honest illumination on the past (and most especially the present), so that we can attempt to formulate a way forward only after we've been honest with ourselves about what's been going on, and the harmful delusions we've been living under. I don't think there is a way forward until everyone understands the volume of lies they've grown up with.(less)

flag

I'm looking for great non-fiction for 16-18 year old readers in advanced classes--especially titles that have their literary fingers on the public pulse, so to speak. Should I consider this text for my students?

Laura Please do, I think it is very timely with what is happening in our country. It is an easy read, and I think will help your students gain some perspect…morePlease do, I think it is very timely with what is happening in our country. It is an easy read, and I think will help your students gain some perspective on "black lives matter", and why that phrase is much more than "all lives matter".(less)

flag

I am deeply affected/changed by this book. What a writer, at the peak of his powers it seems. One question: what is the reasoning for beating children as it relates to black children at risk for violence in the wider world?

Colleen It's an old notion that it will teach them to act in line, respecting authority and instilling a level of fear, which is supposed to keep them safe. …moreIt's an old notion that it will teach them to act in line, respecting authority and instilling a level of fear, which is supposed to keep them safe. (less)

flag

What does the author mea by "those who think they are white?"

Rose I'm still working my way through the book, so I might revisit this later - but I've read several reviews referring to James Baldwin's assertion that r…moreI'm still working my way through the book, so I might revisit this later - but I've read several reviews referring to James Baldwin's assertion that race wasn't real but rather an invented notion. Here's an excerpt below - what do you think?

“On Being White . . . and Other Lies”
James Baldwin

Just so does the white community, as a means of keeping itself white, elect, as they imagine, their political (!) representatives. No nation in the world, including England, is represented by so stunning a pantheon of the relentlessly mediocre. I will not name names— I will leave that to you.

But this cowardice, this necessity of justifying a totally false identity and of justifying what must be called a genocidal history, has placed everyone now living into the hands of the most ignorant and powerful people the world has ever seen. And how did they get that way? By deciding that they were white. By opting for safety instead of life. By persuading themselves that a black child’s life meant nothing compared with a white child’s life. By abandoning their children to the things white men could buy. By informing their children that black women, black men, and black children had no human integrity that those who call themselves white were bound to respect. And in this debasement and definition of black people, they debased and defined themselves.

And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white. Because they think they are white, they do not dare confront the ravage and the lie of their history. Because they think they are white, they cannot allow themselves to be tormented by the suspicion that all men are brothers. Because they think they are white, they are looking for, or bombing into existence, stable population, cheerful natives, and cheap labor. Because they think they are white, they believe, as even no child believes, in the dream of safety. Because they think they are white, however vociferous they may be and however multitudinous, they are as speechless as Lot’s wife— looking backward, changed into a pillar of salt.

However—! White being, absolutely, a moral choice (for there are no white people), the crisis of leadership for those of us whose identity has been forged, or branded, as black is nothing new. We— who were not black before we got here, either, who were defined as black by the slave trade— have paid for the crisis of leadership in the white community for a very long time and have resoundingly, even when we face the worst about ourselves, survived and triumphed over it. If we had not survived, and triumphed, there would not be a black American alive. And the fact that we are still here— even in suffering, darkness, danger, endlessly defined by those who do not dare define, or even confront, themselves— is the key to the crisis in white leadership. The past informs us of various kinds of people— criminals, adventurers, and saints, to say nothing, of course, of Popes— but it is the black condition, and only that, which informs us concerning white people. It is a terrible paradox, but those who believed that they could control and define black people divested themselves of the power to control and define themselves.(less)

flag

Is this a good read?