Between the World and Me
A New York Times Best Seller, National Book Award Winner, NAACP Image Award Winner, and a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Between the World and Me offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
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Community Reviews
Coates’ language depicts with brutal palpability the pattern of violence and murder that the American economic engine generated at its inception, and which it continues to churn out en masse. His thesis is simple: that "race" is more than a naturally occurring abstraction which causes some to have and others to have not; that "the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body." And just has he illustrates the manner of that landing, as he grabs the reader’s hand and walks them purposefully through the history of a nation that rests atop a mountain of black bodies, the weight of these violences begins to build upon the reader, compressing the mind into some form of understanding.
Not even sure what to say in this review, because there is so much that comes to the surface when thinking about what I just read. It was excellent, powerful, needed.
This novel, written as a letter to his black son, hit a little harder for me, because I myself, being the father of a black son, have some of the same thoughts and fears.
I'll for sure always have this book available, in case anyone ever needs a "starting point" on where to start reading about what it's like inside the mind of a black man in America, from youth to adulthood.
This novel, written as a letter to his black son, hit a little harder for me, because I myself, being the father of a black son, have some of the same thoughts and fears.
I'll for sure always have this book available, in case anyone ever needs a "starting point" on where to start reading about what it's like inside the mind of a black man in America, from youth to adulthood.
Excellent memoir (in the form of a letter to the author's son). Strongly recommend every American read this as soon as possible. Coates writes prose as if it is poetry. He clearly and simply traces the relationship between American economics, slavery, the Civil War, the modern South, police brutality, city projects, and the uphill battle of those trying to move away from the history. He manages to pack a lot into a very short book. Between his beautiful writing and his economy of words, I wasn't able to put the book down until I was finished.
It's particularly interesting reading this book right now, when the current presidential election is mired in these very issues. The thing that's different now, is that the racist-sexist forces in our country have failed to hide their intentions this time. With their true intentions on display a majority of the "other" seem to have banded together: Women, black people, Hispanic people, GLBT, and others voting together en masse against the typical oppressors. As Gloria Steinem says racism and sexism are closely related and intertwined. It keeps the maximum number oppressed and also helps keep everyone divided. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that authoritarians want to keep as much power for themselves and away from as many others as possible, so everyone is "lesser." One thing that Coates stresses though is that even if a majority are moving away from racist-sexist attitudes, it takes only one act of state-sanctioned terrorism by the police to take away all security. And sadly there have been many more than one.
It's particularly interesting reading this book right now, when the current presidential election is mired in these very issues. The thing that's different now, is that the racist-sexist forces in our country have failed to hide their intentions this time. With their true intentions on display a majority of the "other" seem to have banded together: Women, black people, Hispanic people, GLBT, and others voting together en masse against the typical oppressors. As Gloria Steinem says racism and sexism are closely related and intertwined. It keeps the maximum number oppressed and also helps keep everyone divided. It's not a conspiracy, it's simply that authoritarians want to keep as much power for themselves and away from as many others as possible, so everyone is "lesser." One thing that Coates stresses though is that even if a majority are moving away from racist-sexist attitudes, it takes only one act of state-sanctioned terrorism by the police to take away all security. And sadly there have been many more than one.
Goosebumps.
Brilliant must read book which expanded my understanding of the construction of race and the impact that has had. It also awakened my understanding of power and the fragility of our bodies. Particularly black bodies and even more so female black bodies.
Coates is just a fantastic writer - what basically is a letter to his son turns into pure poetry and even though the subject is confronting and sad he has made it beautiful.
On a personal note it’s also challenged me to consider my identity. It’s simple for me to say that I’m white. But this is a constructed reality which removes me from the complexity of my history. I want to better understand that history and heritage, some of which has been built on struggle. My Aboriginal ancestors were judged and treated on the basis of their skin colour. And I have had the privilege, ignorance but most of all choice not to really engage in that. This I want to change.
“Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. But you cannot arrange your life around them and the small chance of the Dreamers coming into consciousness. Our moment is too brief. Our bodies are too precious. And you are here now, and you must live—and there is so much out there to live for, not just in someone else’s country, but in your own home. The warmth of dark energies that drew me to The Mecca, that drew out Prince Jones, the warmth of our particular world, is beautiful, no matter how brief and breakable.”
Brilliant must read book which expanded my understanding of the construction of race and the impact that has had. It also awakened my understanding of power and the fragility of our bodies. Particularly black bodies and even more so female black bodies.
Coates is just a fantastic writer - what basically is a letter to his son turns into pure poetry and even though the subject is confronting and sad he has made it beautiful.
On a personal note it’s also challenged me to consider my identity. It’s simple for me to say that I’m white. But this is a constructed reality which removes me from the complexity of my history. I want to better understand that history and heritage, some of which has been built on struggle. My Aboriginal ancestors were judged and treated on the basis of their skin colour. And I have had the privilege, ignorance but most of all choice not to really engage in that. This I want to change.
“Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. But you cannot arrange your life around them and the small chance of the Dreamers coming into consciousness. Our moment is too brief. Our bodies are too precious. And you are here now, and you must live—and there is so much out there to live for, not just in someone else’s country, but in your own home. The warmth of dark energies that drew me to The Mecca, that drew out Prince Jones, the warmth of our particular world, is beautiful, no matter how brief and breakable.”
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