Analysis Of Between The World And Me By Ta-Nehisi Coates

Throughout his book, Between The World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates refrains from calling white people “white”. Rather, he refers to individuals who are not black as “dreamers” who “believe themselves white”. This deliberate phrasing sheds light on the notion that race, racism, and stereotypical racial identities are a social construct. While black Americans share a distinct historical, there is no biological or innate characteristic that constructs a person of a given race to act in accordance to the group they physically resemble. In this sense, the myth of the idealized “white” versus the image of the criminal, subordinated “black”, are fundamentally fictional constructs that were created with the motivation to insure hierarchal power and a

maintenance of subordination. As such, in asking my group, “what is “whiteness” and can it every truly be achieved?”, we concluded that “whiteness” is simply the ideological embodiment of the American dream to act white, talk white, and be white (Coates, 111). Though, as “whiteness” is not a tangible, real concept, acting white, talking white, and being white is a dream that can never truly be actualized. One reason for this is because what it means to white is constantly changing. If you asked my white skinned Jewish ancestors who perished in the Holocaust about being white, they would explain that whit” is not simply a skin colour. The Holocaust exemplified a redefining of the term “white”, and thus the malleability of race, as despite their light skin, Jewish people were persecuted for not being purely Aryan. To prove the mythological nature of race, Coates explains his fascination with Paris and the large Parisian doors, which for me, represent the doors to a new, open-minded thinking about race. Moreover, when visiting Paris, Coates was not defined by his blackness as he was in America. Rather, he “melted in the city”, as his dark skin did not define his character, nor story (123). Seeing how at the same moment in history, Coates had a very different experience with his race in Paris than he did in America, it is clear that what it means to be black is not concrete. As the definition and perception of a certain race differs across geographical boundaries, it is evident that race is a social construct. That being said, technology has redefined our world as a global village. We are no longer bound by geographical borders, but rather have the ability to expand our networks and knowledge through technological advancements. The power of the online village is exemplified in the way Jewlicious founder, David Abitbol, used Twitter to influence the racist minds of Megan and Grace Phelps-Roper, two former Westboro Church Members. Only when the Phelps-Roper sisters expanded their online community beyond the Westboro Church member’s hatred were they able to see that the multitude of world views that appeared more rational then their own (Chen, 2015). In the same way the Phelps-Roper sisters were encapsulated in a world with one singular world view, the dreamers grow up hearing one depiction of black people that frames their beliefs to be racist and unchanging. While social media plays an active role in shaping ideologies, the power of the global community can evidently bring rise to enlightenment and a restructuring of beliefs as individuals are exposed to alternative realities.
Understanding that race is a construct, Coates does not blame a specific police officer for killing Price Jones, but rather the entire American country for instilling racist beliefs.

As such, Coates states, “I knew that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his country…forgiving the killer of Prince Jones would have seemed irrelevant to me. The killer was the direct expression of all his country’s beliefs” (78-79). Moreover, Coates understands that there is an ideological and systematic racism that is so heavily engrained in American culture to the point where racial stereotypes become taken as fact. When all that is shown in television shows, movies, and on the news are images of black, subordinated criminals, it is not hard to believe that Americans adopt these depictions to be true. That being said, one must question: is a widespread adoption of racism to blame for the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner and Prince Jones? When discussing this question with my group, we used the lessons from the Allegory of the Cave to conclude that every person has a choice to live in ignorance or to seek truth. Moreover, police brutality cannot be justified by media representations or societal teachings in the same way that the shadows on the cave wall cannot be thought of as factual, simply because they are the images most prevalently shown. In this sense, police are not victims to epistemic racism – it takes courage and strength to step out of the cave and look past normalized realities, but doing so is both possible and enlightening. It is much easier to view the police killings of black teenagers with a hope that there is some justification for the murderous actions, especially when authorities and the media tell us to believe such. Though, just because one blindly accepts what they are taught and shown by the media, does not mean that their actions can be justified. Living in a global village leaves individuals with

the possibility of expanding their local communities and ideologies, but doing so is a choice, one in which too few of us decide to take.
Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a raw insight into the realities of growing up as a black American man, yet his story does not conclude with a plan of action nor an offering of hope. Rather, Coates argues that American people are so attached to their hierarchal dream of whiteness that to enlighten them would reveal that they are humans, “vulnerable, fallible, breakable humans…built on the destruction of the body” (143). Coates places a large emphasis on the black body throughout his text because it is the body and the body alone that dictates a black persons standing in America. In a similar sense, the rise of Islamic terrorism has brought about a racism towards Muslim people simply due to their physical body. After the ISIS attack on Paris, there was a significant increase of xenophobic and racist attacks on Muslims all across of the world, therefore demonstrating how being inside of a specific body can have profound effects (Krishnan, 2015). Coates claims that the destruction of the body allows for the tranquility of the dream to prosper, as using black Americans as a subordinate scape goat, issues such as police brutality are swept under the rug (143). While Between the World and Me does not provide any tangible solutions, my group and I concluded that sharing the grim backlash of the American dream is a step towards positive change. As mentioned above, social media can act as a positive means of social change, but due to the clutter and vastness of the global village, we have become largely desensitized to online stories. One my see the horrors of police brutality in a social media post, but when the post is followed by countless other humorous or unjust stories, the image of police brutality looses its effect. In choosing to write a book framed as a letter to his son, Coates offers readers a unique insight into the lives of a black American that is not under the influence or distraction of social media. While no single novel is likely to put racism to an end, sharing stories of hardship and injustice is a step towards a world of racial equality.