Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

the same softness that once made me a target now compelled people to trust me with their stories.

the struggle, in and of itself, has meaning.

The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear,

According to this theory “safety” was a higher value than justice, perhaps the highest value.

Fear leads to police state and suspension of civil rights

This need to be always on guard was an unmeasured expenditure of energy, the slow siphoning of the essence. It contributed to the fast breakdown of our bodies.

Vigilance, anxiety, chronic stress, cortisol

one’s hands. To acknowledge these horrors means turning away from the brightly rendered version of your country as it has always declared itself and turning toward something murkier and unknown. It is still too difficult for most Americans to do this.

Work for white allies to simply acknowledge that there are different realities in experience of poc

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. In America, the injury is not in being born with darker skin, with fuller lips, with a broader nose, but in everything that happens after. In

Commonality of experience,, of history

And one racist act took him back. And the same is true of me. I spent years developing a career, acquiring assets, engaging responsibilities. And one racist act. It’s all it takes.”