Between the World and Me
Ta-Nehisi Coates
163 pages
Spiegel & Grau, July 14, 2015
So this is a beautiful, phenomenal, hard-to-read, engrossing, painful, tender, honest, raw, careful book.
It is a letter penned to the author’s son about what life is for Americans, when said Americans are Americans-on-probation, Americans who are not really Americans, Americans who are provisionally American because they are not white Americans.
It bookends the death of Prince Jones, the author’s friend, killed by cops and serving as a symbol of all that is hoped for in black Americans and all that can be brought to nothing by the actions of the state which can act without question against black Americans with violence, robbery, and theft.
Being black will not save you from this fate, but being black will bring you something of great value, and that is the world you see as it is and the people you meet as they are.
Mr. Coates was raised in Baltimore in the tough “urban” environment (see his first book for more details about that), goes to Howard University for a while (called “Mecca” in the book), meets significant people, starts a family, marries, travels–and all the while he sees the world around him as it is to him, someone who, in America, is only reluctantly allowed to exist.
He’s not going to pull punches and he’s not going to provoke despair. He is, however, not going to participate in lies and evasions and half-truths. He is going to talk about what he sees, every root and branch and tree, and he is going to describe what it means.
This is a book to read carefully, words and sentences together, then set aside for a moment to think. Then more words and sentences, and more thinking.
I do not know how books like this get created. They are a wonder to me because they are honest and raw, written not with the hope of popularity but with the conviction that they are true.