Essay On Gangster Culture By Ta-Neihsi Coates

Coates Essay One would assume education and an affluent life style will become a shield of protection. Social status has been the safety net or “go to” protection for African American people for years back, but at some point, your safety net ends where your skin begins. No matter how rich or established a person is the fact will remain that they are black. Ta- Neihsi Coates describes his growing up the ghettos of Baltimore. One of the things he emphasizes is his highest priority as a child was the protection of his body. Then he goes on to describe how his wife grew up in a more affluent and privileged lifestyle, a lifestyle that granted the opportunity of worrying about things other than self-protection. We also have situations similar to

He did not have the luxury of being open-minded and carefree, he was constantly on guard twenty-four-seven. He talks about having to succeed in school because had he failed in school he would be forced out on the streets where he would have to work even harder to protect his body. He speaks of the drug dealers who used violence and power as a means to disguise the fear of losing their bodies to the streets. Bell Hooks speaks of these same men in her essay Gangster Culture. Men in prison are views as superior because they are using the same power to mask to their bodies during a period of incarceration. Although every person who is currently incarcerated in America does not come from the ghetto they are still placed in an environment where their bodies have to be protected on a consistent basis. Coates says, “In America I was part of an equation- even if it wasn’t a part I relished. I was the one police stopped in the middle of a workday.” (p.124) As Coates then writes, “Your mother had to teach me how to love you-how to kiss you and tell you I love you every night. Even now, it does not feel like a ritual. And this is because I am wounded.” (p.125) The environment in which Coates was raised did not grant him the opportunity of being openly affect and loving because those this left his body vulnerable for attack. He makes reference to growing up in a hard house, a

Prince Jones grew up and a privileged household. His education and experiences groomed him for the most prestigious universities in the country, one of the Ivy Leagues, but he chose Howard. Prince Jones was not a hoodlum, a felon, nor did he resist arrest, yet he was a victim of brutality. Honestly, Prince Jones never had the opportunity to defend himself, he was gunned down in a case of mistaken identity, a term often used to describe a black person’s arrest or homicide committed by the police. His mother, Mable Jones grew up knowing what it meant to struggle. Dr. Jones worked hard to become successful and gain status in life so her children would not have to to the the struggle she knew as a child. Dr. Jones became a dreamer, but she soon recognized that status, nor money, nor education could save her son. In his book, Ta-Neihsi Coates writes, “She spoke like an American, with the same expectations of fairness, even fairness belated and begrudged, that she took to medical school all those years ago. And she spoke like a black woman, with all the pain that undercuts those exact feelings.” (p.143) Dr. Jones had to recognize in a painful way that America is not a fair country. America may be monetarily driven, life, liberty