Debrief: Between the World and Me

Yesterday in class we discussed the book Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. After reading the book and recollecting my thoughts, I realized how relevant and powerful Coates’ story truly is. Throughout the book, Coates is on a journey to understand things like; civil rights violence, the anger he witnessed from his parents, and what it means to be black in the United States. This same situation has been happening for the new generations of African American individuals because the Black Lives Matter campaign and the adherent racism that still exists within this country demonstrates that we are just in a similar cycle today as Coates’ experiences in his childhood. There was a good point brought up in class about why Coates went to Howard over all the other potential colleges. It was determined that Coates went to Howard because he could be black, and he would not be the token student or treated differently because his academic potential would not be in question. This struck me because Coates’ experience in a pristine example of how historically many African American people in education are unfairly subjugated and discriminatorily judged because of the color of their skin.

Between the World and Me is a letter written to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ 15 year old son, containing an overall message of understanding the African American situation that still persists today in the United States. Coates wants his son to learn of the fear from his prior experiences but to be adverse, without letting society tell him who he is supposed to be and to have caution in doing so. I am going to leave this debrief off with a quote that directly and powerfully expresses his ending message to his son. “But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all” (Coates 151).