From the Bookshelf of Mockingbird History Quarterly Reading Group …

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Start date: November 19, 2020

Finish date: November 19, 2020

Discussion: THE CASE FOR REPARATIONS

Why we're reading this: We're reading Mr. Coates Atlantic article, "The Case for Reparations." But I first read his bestselling b…more
[close] We're reading Mr. Coates Atlantic article, "The Case for Reparations." But I first read his bestselling book Between the World and Me.

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Sep 22, 2015 Cara Meredith rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Such a powerful read ...but not the easiest thing to swallow, especially if you're white. Which is exactly the point. ...more

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Jul 26, 2020 Lauren Barlis rated it it was amazing

Required reading! Gorgeous and heartbreaking reflections on what it means to be Black in the United States of America, where those who believe in the American Dream have forgotten that it was built on the backs of enslaved Africans.

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Dec 13, 2016 Tamara Murphy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2016

This is one of the most helpful books I've ever read. For a while now, and particularly in light of the rising racial unrest in our country in the past years, I've tried to understand better the context for that unrest. I began to recognize more fully my own sin of racism - unwitting, but no less evil for my ignorance. I also began to hear a thread of subtle racism that had become a sort of conventional wisdom in my background: Disregard any person of color who communicates with anger. Wow. What This is one of the most helpful books I've ever read. For a while now, and particularly in light of the rising racial unrest in our country in the past years, I've tried to understand better the context for that unrest. I began to recognize more fully my own sin of racism - unwitting, but no less evil for my ignorance. I also began to hear a thread of subtle racism that had become a sort of conventional wisdom in my background: Disregard any person of color who communicates with anger. Wow. What shackles to place on any human, let alone a group of people who have historically been marginalized, at the very least, and brutally enslaved, tortured and murdered, at the worst.

Coates is angry. And it is powerful. Reading the book was like hearing the lyrics of the tightest hiphop lyrics delivered in the tone of the smoothest jazz tune. Maybe it was the other way around? Either way the combination of eloquence and anger in addition to the weighty narrative of Coates' own life story was haunting.

Among other important issues, Coates sternly critiques the accepted narrative of Black history so often repeated in schools (I would add churches, too).

“Our teachers urged us toward the example of freedom marchers, Freedom Riders, and Freedom Summers, and it seemed that the month could not pass without a series of films dedicated to the glories of being beaten on camera. The black people in these films seemed to love the worst things in life - love the dogs that rent their children apart, the tear gas that clawed at their lungs, the fire hoses that tore off their clothes and tumbled them into the streets. They seemed to love the men who raped them, the women who cursed them, love the children who spat on them, the terrorists that bombed them. Why are they showing this to us? Why were only our heroes nonviolent? I speak not of the morality of nonviolence, but of the sense that blacks are in especial need of this morality.”

I do not know how the Freedom Riders and other civil rights activists would respond to Coates, but I do know that his insight about our double standards of violent and non-violent heroes are for all of us to hear well. As soon as I read the question: "Why were only our heroes nonviolent?" I knew we must, yet again, repent. Because, of course, the answer is that buried into the roots of our mythologies and legends, we believe that "blacks are in especial need of this morality."

“And they are torturing Muslims, and their drones are bombing wedding parties (by accident!), and the Dreamers are quoting Martin Luther King and exulting nonviolence for the weak and the biggest guns for the strong.”

Lord, have mercy on our evil suppositions. Lord, have mercy on Ta-Nehisi Coates and the son he addresses throughout the book. Give Coates the epiphany of You as a zealously just God, and may you give the rest of us an epiphany of how far we live from that justice. Amen.

you can read my entire review and favorite excerpts at my blog review: http://www.tamarahillmurphy.com/blogt...
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