Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015)

A memoir of what it means to be a black man in America, addressed to his teenage son.

Book Review: Between the World and Me is an individual book, an awkward book, a necessary book. Coates uses three unique phrases to define his argument (this is a memoir based on an argument in the form of guidance). The first is the "destruction of black bodies." By this Coates identifies and emphasizes the physicality of racial prejudice and discrimination in America. Those multi-syllabic words harbor the actual death of a body. Black people die, taken from their families. Their broken bodies break hearts and dreams. Not theoretical, not academic, not abstract. The second phrase is "Americans who believe they are white," which embodies the concept of an identified controlling class, which thinks they are above retribution, beyond law, and exempt from the simple human morality we expect of each other. "Whiteness" is a shield that permits the destruction of black bodies. The third phrase is "the Dreamers," identifying those white people who believe they are entitled to the American Dream and everyone else is proscribed from the American Dream (when I hear "Dreamer" I think DACA, but an interesting coincidence). Coates very much comes from his own unique point of view; an intellectual who writes for the Atlantic, knows and explains history, and grew up black in Baltimore. Between the World and Me is awkward and uncomfortable. Since few white nationalists will read this book, few people will think Coates goes too far, but there will be a number of people who think he doesn't go far enough; he's still discussing Malcolm v. Martin (this is a history). If his intended audience is liberals, primarily white liberals, this is an early and important, step in his discussion. Coates wants to make real the extant of human suffering caused by the racial divide. In part through his own powerful personal history, he shows the constant effect racial violence has on the minds and bodies and lives of black men, how the harm to black men is severe, persistent, and pervasive. He also makes clear the source of racial divide and racial violence. There are times when the reader will say "not all white people," "not all black people," and "what about other people?" Some may also say "where are the women (women aren't excluded, but aren't the book's focus)?" But all these comments miss the point. Coates is making a sweeping statement from his own life and lessons, overstatement, generalization, and glossing is the only way to accurately describe the situation we confront. Cold facts, qualifiers, caveats, exceptions create a false picture that avoids the reality of America. This may make some people uncomfortable, there are so many "what abouts?", but that's not the mission of this book. It should make people uncomfortable, it should be awkward. The current state of America, the white backlash against Obama, officially condoned racism, white supremacists filling front pages and news reports, is unacceptable. Between the World and Me is a valuable and necessary book. Ta-Nehisi Coates is an intelligent and insightful commentator, we need his input. We need his unique and powerful views. If nothing else, he wants to make clear that a post-racial America is a myth. Coates allows he has no solution: the problem is white people and they have to solve it themselves; black people can't do it for them. As such this book is only one step, one slice of the whole. Coates mentions a comment from Saul Bellow: "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?" He later realizes that Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus. But from that quip we realize we can have hundred more Tolstoys, a hundred more Einsteins, a hundred more Edward Jenners. We need them all. We also need the many other stories, many other views of the society we face, from many other people. From all people. And, yes, white people are going to need to solve their problem, which seems to be getting worse daily. Coates knows that white society is going to take everyone down with it: whites are not just destroying the bodies of humans, but the Earth itself. A necessary book. And then you need to read another book.  [4½★]