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For your final essay write a review of Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates. In your review, respond to the other reviewers of his book. Take information from some of the other reviews, and, agree or disagree, expand on it with your own thoughts. Growing up in America as a minority, especially black, is not what most people think it is. Ta-nehisi Coates wrote Between the World and Me, as a letter to his son about growing up black in America. The main point of this memoir is to expose the illusion that America is this free, happy-go-lucky place where racism no longer exists; which is why I support this book being a campus read for an historical black university. In the book Coates talks about how he lived in constant fear because of things like police brutality, talks about how people fear those who don’t look like them, and the way you have to carry yourself as a person of color to protect your body, which are thing we need to know as a black community to survive. An article from The Guardian supports Coates views in Between the World and Me, …show more content…
An article from Slate praises Between the World and Me, for being a wake up call, especially to white americans; and, a statement Coates gave to The New York Times said, “It’s not, as King said, little black girls beside little white girls, it’s looking at little black girls and little white girls and not seeing any difference.(Schuessler, The New York Times)” Which is what his letter to his son is partially about. In the book, Coates says“But race is the child of racism, not the father.... Difference in hue and hair is old... is the new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white.” Coates vision is in my opinion is The Dream 2.0, the steps to truly making everyone equal and eradicate social barriers to improve the lives of
In the article, “A Letter My Son,” Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes both ethical and pathetic appeal to address his audience in a personable manner. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the audience, and in particular his son, on what it looks like, feels like, and means to be encompassed in his black body through a series of personal anecdotes and self-reflection on what it means to be black. In comparison, Coates goes a step further and analyzes how a black body moves and is perceived in a world that is centered on whiteness. This is established in the first half of the text when the author states that,“white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence,”
At the beginning of the book, Coates wrote about how growing up in a community that was hostile against African Americans was like. “The streets transform every ordinary day into a series of trick questions, and every incorrect answer risks a beat-down, a shooting, or a pregnancy. No one survives unscathed. And yet the heat that springs from the constant danger, from a lifestyle of near-death experience, is thrilling.” Coates was always “on guard” as a kid, for he feared that if he spoke or even have the slightest chance of expressing the feeling of dissatisfaction both the streets and the police will seek trouble. There were too many examples at that time that showed Coates physical harm
For as long as I can remember, racial injustice has been the topic of discussion amongst the American nation. A nation commercializing itself as being free and having equality for all, however, one questions how this is true when every other day on the news we hear about the injustices and discriminations of one race over another. Eula Biss published an essay called “White Debt” which unveils her thoughts on discrimination and what she believes white Americans owe, the debt they owe, to a dark past that essentially provided what is out there today. Ta-Nehisi Coates published “Between the World and Me,” offering his perspective about “the Dream” that Americans want, the fear that he faced being black growing up and that black bodies are what
The transition of being a black man in a time just after slavery was a hard one. A black man had to prove himself at the same time had to come to terms with the fact that he would never amount to much in a white dominated country. Some young black men did actually make it but it was a long and bitter road. Most young men fell into the same trappings as the narrator’s brother. Times were hard and most young boys growing up in Harlem were swept off their feet by the onslaught of change. For American blacks in the middle of the twentieth century, racism is another of the dark forces of destruction and meaninglessness which must be endured. Beauty, joy, triumph, security, suffering, and sorrow are all creations of community, especially of family and family-like groups. They are temporary havens from the world''s trouble, and they are also the meanings of human life.
These details help many who may have trouble understanding his hardships, be able to relate. The use of real world examples from his life and history are very convincing and supportive of his theory on blacks lives. Coates talks about how “black blood was spilled in the North colonies, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War [...] and most of all during segregation and the time of JIm Crow Laws. [...] Why is it still being spilt today over the same reasons?” Coates use of history relates to the issues today. It represents how serious the problems were back then, and how serious they still are in the modern society. History is factual, this creates and accurate support to his claim and also allows reader to relate to the past and compare it to today 's society. The rhetorical question causes the audience to think and catches eye. Asking this question emphasizes the issue because it still is a problem that does not have a solution even still today. The author also uses statistics to support the unfair lives of black people. “60 percent of all young black people who drop out of high school will go to jail.” This claim is factual and convincing to his claim about the rigged schooling system in many black communities. The communities are shoved in corner and neglected. This problem results in the thousands of dropouts that later result in jailing. If our schooling systems were
Racism is against equality, divides unions and promotes stratification. The differences that humans have created between race are some of the causes of America's division. From thousands of years ago, racial injustice has meant oppression for Hispanics, Asians, and blacks primarily. Although racism is not as visible nowadays, it still exists, but it is more subtle, which means that sometimes it is difficult to identify an action that has a discriminatory purpose. In the article “The Great White Way” by Debra J. Dickerson, she presents the impact that race has in America, and emphasizes the real purpose of having the “whiteness” status. Similarly, in the letter to his teenage son called “Between The World And Me” written by Ta-nehisi Coates,
Life is a complicated process. It’s filled with many things that keep it interesting but at the same time, very dull. Life’s what you make it and for many, it’s something we all strive for. In the story, The Space Between, the author takes full advantage of the premise as there’s rarely a dull moment- as in life. The book is filled with many literary devices that work nicely with the plot and dialogue. These include; metaphors, similes, irony, personification, and many more. We follow a young man who is finding his way in the world. He has only a week to change his life for the better. But he will face many obstacles on the way that brings the readers into a startling and fun journey.
Fueled by fear and ignorance, racism has corrupted the hearts of mankind throughout history. In the mid-1970’s, Brent Staples discovered such prejudice toward black men for merely being present in public. Staples wrote an essay describing how he could not even walk down the street normally, people, especially women, would stray away from him out of terror. Staples demonstrates his understanding of this fearful discrimination through his narrative structure, selection of detail, and manipulation of language.
Even today, African American authors write about the prejudice that still happens, like Ta-Nehisi Coates. In his essay Acting French, Coates recalls when he studied the French language at Middlebury College. Despite all his efforts to integrate with his fellow students into French culture, yet another barrier reveals itself. “And so a white family born into the lower middle class can expect to live around a critical mass of people who are more affluent or worldly and thus see other things, be exposed to other practices and other cultures. A black family with a middle class salary can expect to live around a critical mass of poor people, and mostly see the same things they (and the poor people around them) are working hard to escape. This too compounds.” Because of the lack of black people available to look up to in scholastics, it makes it hard for black students to find the motivation to pursue interests in English or other
In Between the World and Me, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author writes with passion to his son about the many different stages of his life intended directly to depict the life of a black person and in how racism, prejudice, and slavery has caused a black life to be unequal to a white one. In his writing Coates states
In the book Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates speaks on racial encounters developing while growing up and gives a message to his son about the unfair racial ways he had to overcome in his life. Through Coates racist and unfair lifestyle, he still made it to be a successful black man and wants his son to do the same. He writes this book to set up and prepare his child for his future in a country that judges by skin color. Coates is stuck to using the allegory of a disaster in the book while trying to explain the miserable results from our history of white supremacy. In parts of the story, he gives credit to the viewpoint of white
I was late for school, and my father had to walk me in to class so that my teacher would know the reason for my tardiness. My dad opened the door to my classroom, and there was a hush of silence. Everyone's eyes were fixed on my father and me. He told the teacher why I was late, gave me a kiss goodbye and left for work. As I sat down at my seat, all of my so-called friends called me names and teased me. The students teased me not because I was late, but because my father was black. They were too young to understand. All of this time, they thought that I was white, because I had fare skin like them, therefore I had to be white. Growing up having a white mother and a black father was tough. To some people, being black and white is a contradiction in itself. People thought that I had to be one or the other, but not both. I thought that I was fine the way I was. But like myself, Shelby Steele was stuck in between two opposite forces of his double bind. He was black and middle class, both having significant roles in his life. "Race, he insisted, blurred class distinctions among blacks. If you were black, you were just black and that was that" (Steele 211).
Brent Staples focuses on his own experiences, which center around his perspective of racism and inequality. This perspective uniquely encapsulates the life of a black man with an outer image that directly affects how others perceive him as a person. Many readers, including myself, have never experienced the fear that Staples encounters so frequently. The severity of his experiences was highlighted for me when he wrote, “It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto.” (135) Having to accept that fact as a reality is something that many people will never understand. It is monumentally important that Staples was able to share this perspective of the world so others could begin to comprehend society from a viewpoint different from their
In Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder teaches philosophy and it explains basic philosophical ideas better than any other reading book or textbook that I have ever read. The many philosophical lessons of the diversified thinkers of their own time were dexterously understood. The author has a wonderful knack for finding the heart of a concept and placing it on display. For example, he metamorphoses Democritus' atoms into Lego bricks and in a stroke makes the classical conception of the atom dexterously attainable. He relates all the abstract concepts about the world and what is real with straightforward everyday things that everyone can relate to which makes this whole philosophy course manageable. ''The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live?'' (Gaarder, Jostein 15).
Urvashi Butalia in her book, The Other Side of Silence, attempts to analyze the partition in Indian society, through an oral history of Indian experiences. The collection of traumatic events from those people who lived through the partition gives insight on how history has enveloped these silences decades later. Furthermore, the movie 1947 Earth reveals the bitterness of partition and its effect of violence on certain characters. The most intriguing character which elucidates the silence of the partition is the child, Lenny. Lenny in particular the narrator of the story, serves as a medium to the intangibility created by the partition. The intangibility being love and violence, how can people who grew up together to love each other hate one another amidst religion? This question is best depicted through the innocence of a child, Lenny. Through her interactions with her friends, the doll, and the Lahore Park, we see silence elucidated as comfort of not knowing, or the pain from the separation of comfort and silence from an unspoken truth.