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Cliff notes on the case for reparations by Tanahisi Coates
Cliff notes on the case for reparations by Tanahisi Coates
The case for reparations overview
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Ta- Nehisi Coates lives in New York with his wife and son. He is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and received the George Polk Award for his cover story, “The Case for Reparations” in The Atlantic. He also received the National Magazine Award, the Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism. Coates is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me.
Between the World and Me was written by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote the book as a letter to his son, He tries to answer difficult question using the past, his past, and the present. He tries to answer, “What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live with in it?” and “How can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history
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which has a history of shootings and imprisonment of black people. At the end of his situation ended with his freedom, Prince Carmen Jones did not; Coates went to the funeral. The prayers for forgiveness for the officer who shot the boy did not mean anything to Coates because of race defining tendencies of police towards black people. He also talks about living in New York City with his family; he discussed support and companionship of fellow black friends and friends and the images of rich white people and their freedom. Black men had to be on guard, ready for violence which is an aspect that steals time from the black man according to Coates. When bringing his son to pre-school he was on guard but then realized there wasn’t hate in the school. He could not control the impulse and felt bad about having it. He reflects on a black families’ home that was repossessed by white authorities. Coates see the system as one that sees black bodies as disposable and exploitable. He talks about how African Americans are kept in places that aren’t good quality by the city planning, real estate business, and the banks. He urges his son to not pursue the dream and discuss the bad
and make fun of black elders. And would talk to them any kind of way.
Even though they are innocent, blacks still get arrested in the most part of cases. The difference between these two authors are how they portray the messages of racism where Rankine shows it through images and artwork while Smith shows it through deep and powerful poems. For example, Rankine shows an image of “stop-and-frisk” policy where it shows that cops still stopped and questioned blacks even though they are not doing anything wrong. The reason why the cops stopped them is because of their skin color and the cops think that blacks always do suspicious things. All these African Americans are always the victims of suspicious crimes as it shows in the images. In addition, Smith expresses his emotions through poems, such as A History of Violence in the Hood, Dear White America and Dinosaurs in the Hood. In “A History of Violence in the Hood,” Smith writes: “& the preview just keeps repeating over & over.” It shows that history of violence for these African Americans never stop and the cycle keeps continuing where they always get arrested and questioned. In the end, they are always seen as a dangerous person and these people do not commit justice and fair treatment because of how the society treats them. In “Dear White America, “ Smith states: “I
After her diagnosis of chronic kidney failure in 2004, psychiatrist Sally Satel lingered in the uncertainty of transplant lists for an entire year, until she finally fell into luck, and received her long-awaited kidney. “Death’s Waiting List”, published on the 5th of May 2006, was the aftermath of Satel’s dreadful experience. The article presents a crucial argument against the current transplant list systems and offers alternative solutions that may or may not be of practicality and reason. Satel’s text handles such a topic at a time where organ availability has never been more demanded, due to the continuous deterioration of the public health. With novel epidemics surfacing everyday, endless carcinogens closing in on our everyday lives, leaving no organ uninflected, and to that, many are suffering, and many more are in desperate request for a new organ, for a renewed chance. Overall, “Death’s Waiting List” follows a slightly bias line of reasoning, with several underlying presumptions that are not necessarily well substantiated.
The journey that Coates shares with his son is one of personal transformation. Occurring over the course of a lifetime, Coates comes to terms with his identification as a black
The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B Dubois is a influential work in African American literature and is an American classic. In this book Dubois proposes that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line." His concepts of life behind the veil of race and the resulting "double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others," have become touchstones for thinking about race in America. In addition to these lasting concepts, Souls offers an evaluation of the progress of the races and the possibilities for future progress as the nation entered the twentieth century.
Often in life, people take their freedoms, a gift that allows them to express their individuality, for granted. However, in the dystopian societies of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, people are reminded of just how easily their freedoms and humanity can be stripped away. Attwood and Ishiguro urge people to never lose sight of the core values that define who they are. The compelling novels chronicle the life journey of two protagonists as they fight to define their own existence and worth in life. Offred, the central character in The Handmaid’s Tale is exploited as a baby making machine, while Kathy, the leading role in Never Let Me Go, is degraded as a lifeless android in a sea of clones. From Atwood and Ishiguro’s provocative coming-of-age novels emerge two beautiful and inspiring heroines. Whether it is through their remembrance of the past, their loss of innocence, their capability to hope, or their ability to establish relationships, Offred and Kathy prove that they are every bit as human as the rest of society. Ultimately, despite the many differences in their distinct masterpieces, Atwood and Ishiguro share the same intent in their haunting portrayal of the protagonists’ dehumanizabtion—to shed light on the true essence of what it is to be human.
In the first section Coates made a quote on page 69 making the statement “Slavery is not an identifiable mass of flesh”. He wanted his son to understand that America is still affected by slavery. White supremacy ideology is embedded in American society making it hard for African Americans to not be targeted and face racial discrimination. For example, in Chicago they have sections considered the ghetto where blacks were “forced” to live resulting in blacks being oppressed and easily targeted. Slavery still lingering around makes it difficult for Coates to not fear his son’s life because any giving moment he may lose his life because people with authority has the right to shoot and kill without punishment. In the situation of Prince Jones, he was shot innocently and his killer never made it behind bars because he had authority although he was a black officer. Once Samori understand that slavery still exist in America, I feel he would understand his dad’s fear of losing him and understand why he wanted them to move out the country to experience life without as much
He hopes to prepare his son for his encounter on a steeper society, in which a black men getting killed on news is regular nowadays. Between the World and Me writer Ta-Nehisi Coates article of being black in America and America’s unwillingness to explore the origin of racial conflict. Even though he chose the book more than the streets, Coates still felt the fear while growing up and he still writes. Unlike many of his peers, Coates denied religion growing up; Malcolm X was like a Godly figure to him and the book The Destruction of Black Civilization became his bible. Coates questions himself about what being “black” in America means and understands that we are threatened everyday. Coates tells us that it is a fear of destruction and the fear of destruction goes through black neighborhoods, as showed in weapons, fights, police, and inflexible system. It 's like people have to worry about protecting their lives than excelling in life. Coates ' story is most importantly filled with his way to understanding. It 's the account of how he came to comprehend the displeasure of his family, his friends, the brutality of his environment. Coates does not want his son to go through the same things as him in life. It 's the story of how he accommodated
To answer the question, How is the utopian society Anarres structured, one can attack it at many ways. First one can look at the cultural context of the time period in which the novel was written. LeGuin wrote The Dispossessed in 1974. One can argue that the community of Anarres was in inspired by the social movements of the late 1960's and early seventies. The civil rights movement, the feminist movement, the environmental movement, and the 60's counter culture or "hippie" values are all reflected in the culture and society of Anarres.
In the short stories "The Story of an Hour," by Chopin and "A Rose for
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
Zora Neale Hurston’s writing embodies the modernism themes of alienation and the reaffirmation of racial and social identity. She has a subjective style of writing in which comes from the inside of the character’s mind and heart, rather than from an external point of view. Hurston addresses the themes of race relations, discrimination, and racial and social identity. At a time when it is not considered beneficial to be “colored,” Hurston steps out of the norm and embraces her racial identity.
There is truly a fine line between physical discipline and abuse, and many times in the black community, that line is crossed. This topic is centered on discussions found in both Brittney Cooper’s article published on The Salan entitled “The Racial Parenting Divide” and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ novel “Between The World and Me” . Both parallel one another in the ideas exhibited in their pieces. The article written by Cooper confesses the often times TOO authoritative parenting style that black parents use to discipline their children while Between the World and Me gives a first hand acknowledgement of that. Coates’ life testimonials throughout Between the World and the examples given by Cooper in her article both serve as a prime example to the fine
Does It Matter? How Do You Know? by Siegfried Sassoon "Does It Matter" is an angry, heavily ironic war poem written in 1917. by the famous World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon. On first read, it is.
In the “Unbearable lightness of being” by Milan Kundera the relationship between Tomas and Tereza is unproportional – one is direct opposite of the other. As explained in the book through Friedrich Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence and the explanation of the opposition between lightness and weight. Tomas, who is a surgeon based in Prague was married to a woman who bore him a son. But, after two years they divorced, he was denied custody of the son and they parted ways. The divorce had some psychological effects on him because he started treating women differently. He becomes womanizer with certain basic rules of three, “Either you see a woman three times in quick succession and then never again, or you maintain relations over the years but make sure that the rendezvous are at least three weeks apart”. Tomas was later married to a young lady called Tereza. She is quite opposite of Tomas humble, respective and faithful but many would consider her naive. Even after marrying her he continues practicing adultery. Again, trying to be philosophical about sex, Tomas argues sex and love are two separate and unrelated entities. In the book the author says, “Making love with a woman and slee...