From the Bookshelf of Diversity in All Forms!…

Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Start date: October 1, 2022

Finish date: October 31, 2022

Discussion: Monthly Group Reads

Why we're reading this: Diversity topic we cover in October is race/ethnicity

Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
[close] Diversity topic we cover in October is race/ethnicity

Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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What Members Thought

Jun 07, 2015 Chris Blocker rated it it was amazing

Going into this book, I had some apprehension. Could it live up to the acclaim? Was Coates the resurrected Baldwin as some seem to believe he is? Would Coates correctly identify the root of the problems that racial tensions grow out of?

Initially, it seemed Coates was heading down the wrong direction, making socio-economic comparisons of the black reality versus the white world of Mr. Belvedere. Not only is this comparison hugely erroneous, but it ignores the black world of The Cosby Show and see ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

May 13, 2015 Phyllis | Mocha Drop rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Touching!

8 likes · Like · see review

Jul 12, 2016 Lynn L rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: african-american

I read this because I noticed it seemed many members of the reading group PBT were reading it. I ordered the audio from the library, I never read anything about the book or the author. I was surprised to see how timely it was that I read this book. This gentleman speaks very eloquently and movingly and with genuine passion and care about his experiences. This book moved me to view "news" in a different way. This is a book that informs the reader in a way that changes our perception of events in ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 17, 2015 Meg - A Bookish Affair rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction

Extremely powerful!

6 likes · Like · see review

Aug 31, 2015 ColumbusReads rated it it was amazing

Powerful! Poignant! Moving! Searing! I have lot's more to say about this book that should be essential and required reading for not just every young, black child like Samori, but every American. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 16, 2017 Christina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: autobiography-memoir, race, non-fiction, social-movements-social-justice

There really are no words to describe this book. I cannot review his writing or the meaning of this book because this is a letter to his 15 year old son. This is a book describing how Ta-Nehisi views his world and the world in which he son will soon come to understand for himself.

I do believe that every American should read this book because it gives honest and valid points as to why African Americans view the world we live in the way we do... there is no security, there is no freedom, there is ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Apr 25, 2017 Katrisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

A powerful and beautifully written book! Coates navigates through the entwined pride anger and fear that comes with living in a place where systemic racism threatens black lives. This father's words to his son - and to the world - are well worth the reading. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Dec 18, 2015 Marilyn Diamond rated it it was amazing

A true story about life as a black man to his son. This story is a riveting piece about racism and how it affects his life from an early age to 2015. From the streets of Baltimore to Ferguson. Couldn't put it down. ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Feb 01, 2017 eHawk rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, personalstory

this is a window I felt I really needed to look through, a very personal snapshot of someone who is different than me, has different fears than me, and is all the more worth hearing. There it's still so much common ground, and so much shared. struggles and reactions to privilege, and ingrained fear are really hard to put your finger on when it has been written across every experience and in the culture at large. this has been helpful to me in trying to back out a degree when thinking of assumpti ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 07, 2017 Becca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: nonfiction, 2017-read-in-colour

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. NOTE: I'm still pretty new to these conversations, so anything grossly offensive is out of ignorance. Thank you for bearing with me as I learn! :)

Coates narrates a letter in three parts to his son about being a black man in the 20th-21st century, woven with recollections of events in his life concerning his heritage and things that happened to him and his friends that have shaped him and how he's learned to recognize and move beyond his fears...and how he wants something different than fear for NOTE: I'm still pretty new to these conversations, so anything grossly offensive is out of ignorance. Thank you for bearing with me as I learn! :)

Coates narrates a letter in three parts to his son about being a black man in the 20th-21st century, woven with recollections of events in his life concerning his heritage and things that happened to him and his friends that have shaped him and how he's learned to recognize and move beyond his fears...and how he wants something different than fear for his son.

Essential reading for everyone. Coates' poetry soul shines through and paints gorgeous word pictures about hard truths. I knew very little about this book before I read it, and I'm so glad I read it.

I love the way he used the word "bodies" not just speaking about physical bodies, but also as a literary device. I'm not quite sure how to explain this just yet. I will definitely be re-reading.

A few quotes:

"...I came to understand that my country was a galaxy, and this galaxy stretched from the pandemonium of West Baltimore to the happy hunting grounds of Mr. Belvedere. I obsessed over the distance between that other sector of space and my own. I knew that my portion of the American galaxy, where bodies were enslaved by a tenacious gravity, was black, and the other =, liberated portion was not. I knew that some inscrutable energy preserved the breach. I felt, but did not yet understand, the relation between that other world and me. And I felt in this a cosmic injustice, a profound cruelty, which infused an abiding, irrepressible desire to unshackle my body and achieve the velocity of escape." (p. 20-21)

"But the American reunion was built on a comfortable narrative that made enslavement into benevolence, white knights of body snatchers, and mass slaughter of the war into a kind of sport in which one could conclude that both sides conducted their affairs with courage, honor, and élan." (p. 102)

"You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people uncomfortable." (p. 108)

""I examined the pictures of these giant doors in our small Harlem apartment. I had never seen anything like them. It had never even occurred to me that such giant doors could exist, could be so common in one part of the world and totally absent in another. And it occurred to me, listening to your mother, that France was not a thought experiment but an actual place filled with actual people whose traditions were different, whose lives were really different, whose sense of beauty was different." (p. 119)

"...And though I could never, myself, be a native of any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us. I had read too much by then. And my eyes–my beautiful, precious eyes–were growing stronger each day. And I saw that what divided me from teh world was not anything intrinsic to us but the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named us matters more than anything we could ever actually do." (p. 120 - the rest of this section is amazing)

"...And watching him walk away, I felt I had missed part of the experience becuase my eyes were made in Baltimore, because my eyes were blindfolded by fear.
What I wanted was to put as much distance between you and that blinding fear as possible. I wanted you to se different people living by different rules." (p. 126-27)

"But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all. The Dream is the same habit that endangers the planet, the same habit that sees our bodies stowed away in prisons and ghettos." (p. 151) ...more

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Jul 14, 2015 Susanne rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, rec-book-riot

3-1/2 stars

First, I think this is a necessary book that should be read. My issue was the writing style for most of the book. It was written in a stream of consciousness style, with which I have difficulty. I can't read Virginia Woolf for the same reason. The information doesn't stick with me when the time or place or people switch several times on a page. The last 20+ pages were more cohesive. Overall there is a lot of good information. ...more

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