Book review: “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)
Repost from July 2, 2024
On this episode of "Books I wish I read when I was younger," I finally read Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2015 autobiographical work Between the World and Me. Without reading any background information before diving into the text, I was immediately reminded of James Baldwin's "A letter to my nephew" (1962) and Dr. Kenjus Watson's opening prologue to his dissertation Revealing and uprooting cellular violence: Black men and the biopsychosocial impact of racial microaggressions (2019). The use of letters to nephews and sons about the promises and perils of growing up Black in the U.S. is poignant yet profoundly sad. It thrusts the critically conscious reader onto an emotionally-charged rollercoaster ride full of sudden turns and stomach-turning drops. It forces them to read and view the text not only as the reader themselves and all the lived experiences they bring with them up to that moment but also as the letter's recipient: a young Samori Coates, James, and Kaleb. It is through these Black boys' imagined interpretations of these letters from their father/uncles that cuts deep for me. The awakening to and understanding of the truth within their words about the way the U.S. and its police force/military force/government views and treats Black bodies.
As a non-Black reader, the experience of reading Coates' book was simultaneously devastating and beautiful. When I first read Watson's dissertation in 2021, I cried within the first five minutes of reading his opening letter to his nephew. With Coates' book, I didn't shed one tear. Instead, all I felt was white-hot anger. And sorrow. Samori is likely an adult now. I wonder if he rereads his father's words. How it made him feel as a teenager, and how it makes him feel now. Although the book has moments of love, hope, and joy, the personal nature of the book is unsettling, especially in the context of parent-son relationships. As I begin to wrestle with the costs of critical consciousness (hello racial battle fatigue!), I feel for those critical scholars who are parents and caregivers. Even with an amazing community of support, I cannot fathom having to raise a child during this time. This disbelief at the laundry list of considerations for parents to keep their children safe and aware of sociopolitical crises added to the anxiety I felt while reading Coates' letter to Samori.
Throughout the book, Coates calls out the systemic racism present in numerous U.S. industries, including its schooling system and criminal justice system. While he doesn't directly use the term "intersectionality," he explicitly names the way in which Black boys/men experience oppression in these systems is similar yet different to the ways that Black girls/women navigate the same systems. I am grateful that he named the homophobia that he learned and internalized from his childhood. As a scholar interested in lifelong learning and identity formation across one's lifespan, I am glad that I have come to Between the World and Me at this moment in my work, when I am thinking deeply about ritualized behaviors and beliefs/practices that are taken-for-granted as normal or everyday. Coates' breakdown of his introduction to youth gang culture as an education, a social practice of observations, and a system of rewards and punishments is helpful when conceptualizing a possible process by which oppressive ideologies and discourses are internalized among marginalized children and youth.
I find it ironic that I finished this book days before people in Hawaiʻi and the U.S. continent observe Independence Day. Since learning about the U.S. empire's true history of genocide and colonization, I have not viewed July 4 as a day for celebrating. Reading Between the World and Me in the days leading up to the ritualized date is yet another crack in the myth of U.S. supremacy and a reminder that truth prevails.
Book length: 152 pages | Genre: non-fiction | Topics: U.S. racism, Black excellence, parent-child relationships
