Between The World And Me

Excellent read. Shows how it is growing up black in America. Completely different experience to mainstream populace. Sadly after the small gains made in the 60’s seem to have been completely eroded in recent years. Institutionalized racism is very much present and stifles the aspirations of young black men in modern day America…..

Excellent book. Literally everyone should read this. Also, it arrived in perfect condition from the seller.

Love his writing style! A heavy topic with a seed of hope.

Even though it took some time to get here, it was worth it. It even brought a bookmark, nice.

I read this book with a group and it is very moving. As a person who is steeped in white privilege and is just beginning to understand what that means, this book is very helpful. I have no way of knowing what it’s like to be a black man – all the fear it brings each day – unless I educate myself and this book really opened my eyes. I am grateful for the author’s honestly and outstanding writing skills. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to know more about institutional racism.

I’ve a bit more understanding now about how hard it is being a young black manin a rough neighborhood in a white-dominated country, which is difficult for meto acquire, being an old white man raised in a benign California beach town

Written as a series of letters/essays to his son, an exchange of experiences of living Black in America. The book is a well-written expression of questions that can challenge us to think in different ways that we are typically coached to think and to consider alternate explanations and perhaps lead to other paths to recovery.

Gave as a gift .

First reviewed in August, 2016. Reposted February 5, 2023Way back at the beginning of time, that is, the 1960’s, Richard Wright and James Baldwin were obligatory reading for me, and I have read much of their work. I still recall a black woman in Atlanta damning me with faint praise: “I think you are a moderate liberal.” Likewise, the lyrics of an old Phil Ochs song, “Love me, I am a liberal” have rolled around in my head: “…and I knew all the old union hymns.” Nowadays, I suppose, Wright and Baldwin ARE “the old union hymns.” America has made so much progress in race relations since the “Amos and Andy Show” was the only authorized black presence on TV, and Jackie Robinson proved that a black man could play in professional sports. Some blacks are now “truffled” in my neighborhood. There is a Black Caucus in Congress, and then there is the matter of the President… Progress.But there is also the stagnation, and backlash. Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book concerns the latter. His first name is derived from an old Egyptian word for Nubia, the area to the south of them that was inhabited by blacks. The New York Times review of this book underscored the similarities, and delineated the differences between this work and Baldwin’s (The Fire Next Time). Both take the structure of an older black man telling a much younger black man the (racial) “facts of life” in America. In Baldwin’s case, it was to his nephew, in Coates, it is to his son.Coates grew up “on the wrong side of the tracks” in Baltimore. At least, that is what it was called in Baldwin’s time. Perhaps it still is. A tough neighborhood. A war zone, literal, and of sorts. A lot of psychic energy is spent just trying to stay alive… of watching for what is out of place on the “trail” to school, and does that bring danger? Coats quantifies this, in terms of brain time, at 33%. Cuts down on your time for writing the next “killer app.” Another quantification: “At the onset of the Civil War, our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars, more than all of American industry, all of American railroads, workshops, and factories combine, and the prime product rendered by our stolen bodies – cotton – was America’s prime export. The richest men in America lived in the Mississippi River Valley, and they made their riches off our stolen bodies.” He provides no basis for the four billion figure… and for those who would dispute it, is it double or half? I recently read and reviewed (Ghosts along the Mississippi), with the subtitle that includes “magic”. There was nothing magically about it. Far more than an abstract four billion, those “ghosts” of old mansions quantify what was stolen.His is a staccato writing style; the “takeaways” of a 1000 page book. Concerning schools, quotes worthy of Paul Goodman: “I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance…Schools did not reveal truths, they concealed them.” He questions the meek acceptance and embrace of the “tear gas” of passive resistance. He admires Malcom X. Coates names 10-15 black men who have been killed by the police, the police that he says are so instrumental in fulfilling America’s will on race relations. Coates went to the black “Mecca,” Howard University, in Washington, DC, and was dazzled by the variety that is encompassed by that word: “blackness.” He finds love on more than one occasion.Prince Jones, a fellow classmate of his at Howard was murdered by the police. He described this killing in detail, and has a heart-breaking visit to his mother, a medical doctor, who had worked her way up from scrubbing white people’s floors in Louisiana. His eulogy for Jones is haunting and beautiful. Accountability? There never is any. “And no one would be brought to account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any human but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of ‘race,’ imposed upon an innocent country by the inscrutable judgment of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. They typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force on nature, the helpless agent of our world’s physical laws.” Scathing, as good as Baldwin ever wrote.Coates seminal work is an update on the much “progress” that has NOT been made. Normally I would give it my special rating for an exceptional work, 6-stars. However, I did have some problems with it. He goes to France, his first trip abroad, and is enthralled… I’ve been there… figuring the 6eme arrondissement is the “center of the universe.” However, he never mentions an essential word for understanding France, “les banlieues,” literally, the suburbs, with such a different connotation than in America. A fellow reviewer has mentioned that he has become more critical after his first visit. And then I would also be critical of his use of the term “Dreamer,” of which there are many, for sure, but are not a monolithic block that seems to mean “non-black.” And he never develops the implications of the fact that the cop who killed Prince Jones was black also. Like “les banlieues,” “Tom,” of an avuncular nature, does not appear in his work either. Still, overall, a very important work, for America today, and for those still singing those “old union hymns.” 5-stars.

As described

Great read. Coates delves into the world of a Black youth’s moments of self-identity and transition within a ever changing environment very well. His reflections on Howard University are inspiring laced with vivid imagery. This book is a must read!!!

Every white person needs to read this – if you want a view inside what it’s like growing up black in America, this is the most personal, intimate, loving, gentle and honest expression of that perspective. Ta-Nehisi Coates puts into words emotions and perspective that I never could have known were there without him telling me. Also, I’m white, so I am unfamiliar with this path: he has given me a real lesson. Read the book three times, and read Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time in between the first and second – getting a good schooling on a world I have never had to live in, and but which is inhabited by half of the United States.

I loved this book!

good book

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read.

Wow-if you read this and don’t come away from it with a new perspective on race in America today, I have no words. Read it again. And again…

this book is beautifully written. I need to read it a second time to take it all in!

Great

This book was one of the most powerful that I have ever read. It really helps me understand what blacks endure in this country. The prose is excellent. I read the book in one day with only a couple of stops for food and bathroom breaks.

Good book

I love this book …. such a great author.

This Is A Great Book. Coates Is One Of The Leading Contemporary Authors Imo. I’m Really Happy With This Purchase, Couldn’t Put It Down.

Powerfully written as a letter to the author’s 15 year old son about the danger every black person in America faces on a daily basis.

Great description of the experiences of a particular young black man in America. Alters the current strereotypical narrative of young black males. Humanizing. Deeply gratifying. A must read.

Finally received this. Can’t wait to read….thanks Wordly.

At last, real black men are standing up and speaking assertively, thruthfully, and rightfully to themselves and to power!!!

Amazing novel! Coates has an ability to communicate his personal experiences that reflect and compliment Black history. His literary voice is of the likes of Maya Angelou and James Baldwin.

An incredible book written in a powerful voice. It shook me to my core. It made me realize in how much ignorance, denial and perversion we all live, especially non-BIPOC. This book should be a mandatory reading in high school. Forget about the “classics”. Open your eyes “white” America and start to see the wrongs which started few hundreds years back and continue to today.

Beautifully written. I agree with Toni Morrison, this is a must read!!! Reading it with my grandson; this becomes part of his library.

Such a great book. An eye opener! Most people should read this book just as a way to bring more humanity to all our lives.

Every father and son should read this book.

Bought this as a gift and they loved it so much I bought the author’s other book as well.

It’s a must read for all.

Everyone in the USA should read this book. It is not just a letter between father and son,it is a learning essay for everyone!

BEST book in years – nonfiction at it’s best, gripping couldn’t put it down!!

Great book for teachers to read to understand kids

Mr. Coates’ unique perspective as an enlightened and socially aware black father living in a culture of systemic racism comes alive in his ‘letter’ to his son, a ‘letter’ every black son and daughter should read.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has written an extremely informative,educational, thoughtful and thought provoking book. A must read for insight into racism and what it really means to inhabit a black body in America. Should be required reading for everyone that isn’t a person of color.

Beautiful, meaningful, powerful, and necessary book. A must have in any collection.

Beautifully written, and emotionally gripping. Coates’ letter to his son explains his experience as an African American male. I read this book in one day, could not put it down.

I bought copies for friends and family. Everybody should read this andexperience what a Black father must convey to his son in this sickand racist society

I bought it for my boyfriend and he loves it! He literally brings it everywhere he goes. <3

Great book! Had to purchase for college and it was very interesting in the perspective of Coates and how the society had treated him because he was African American.

I loved this book. Eloquent, beautiful, haunting and also very wise about the violence done to the black body. As a white person, I received so much insight and learned so much. This touched my heart and my soul.

This book should be a part of the curriculum in every high school/college. Coates writes a beautiful, heartbreaking and redemptive personal narrative of what his experience of being a black man in America has been for him in a letter to his son and the history of their family and the hell they went through. From Howard University to the Civil War, Chicago to Paris: and he lists many writers he read at Howard University that made me aware of how few of them I knew. I will change that!”The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. It is hard to face this. But all our phrasing–race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy–serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body.”READ THIS!!