Summary Of Between The World And Me

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In Between the World and Me the author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, is an African American parent writing a letter to his son about racism in America. Based on series of events that he experienced when he was younger, Coates tries to make his son to think about the treatment that black people receive in America. The sublime message in the text is to encourage his son to have a different perspective of life, due to the lack of justice that his son witnessed in the Michael Brown’s case. However, Coates’ negative attitude catches the reader attention, in this case, his fifteen year old boy, and discourages him at the same time; making this letter a bit confusing. Coates’ prime impulse to write this letter was the effect that Michael Brown’s case had in Coates’ implied message in the book is mainly about the struggle that black people suffer in America. The examples given to his son might be seen too explicit and helpless for his son. In the beginning of Between the World and Me, Coates’ witnessed his son crying over the injustice served in the Michael Brown’s case. Assuming that his son already has an idea of how difficult it is to be black in America, Coates decides to ineffectively consolidate his son by deeply explain him how unfair the world is going to be when the tone of your skin is darker than the rest. Coates writes in this letter to his son an event that shows the unfortunate case of a young black man killed by the police. “Prince had been driving to see his fiancée. He was killed yards from her home. The only witness to the killing of Prince Jones was the killer himself. The officer claimed that Prince had tried to run him over with his jeep, and I knew that the prosecutors would believe him.” (77). Later in this excerpt, Coates mentions that Prince Jones was killed by mistake, meaning that Prince Jones looks just like the wanted suspected at the time by the Prince George County Police Department. Given this illustration, Coates disempowers his son by telling him in other words that just by being black the worst should be expected, and society will be unfair to

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