THE SUNDAY REVIEW | BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME – TA-NEHISI COATES

This book is short but will turn your worldview on its head, shake it up and set it decisively to rights. It follows in the tradition of James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, a book so short but with such power that it is still one of the most important books on race in America (and by extension most of the world), despite having been published in 1963. Also like Baldwin’s classic, this book takes the form of a letter from an elder to a young Black boy – this time from a father to his son. In it he addresses the reality of the world his son has been born into and the racial inheritance he must carry. He talks of the realizations fatherhood brought him to, of the decisive moments in his own life that affected his perception of his own place in the world, and of the dreams he holds for his son’s experiences – but also the reality within which they will have to fight for survival.

I cannot over-sell this book. I started reading it as an audiobook read by the author – which is excellent – but had to then get my physical copy out and read along because it was necessary for me to mark passages that I know will stay with me for the rest of my life. There are lines that stand out, but also stories he tells that are so deeply emotional that their images will never leave me. His desperate love for his son comes through on every page, but along with it his acceptance that the world his son will move in is not what it should be. That his son will bear the weight of centuries of injustice followed up with Black Americans being loaded down with the weight of White people’s guilt and inability to face it. He fears for his son’s physical safety, but also doesn’t want him to shrink himself to less than his full potential to avoid upsetting the balance of other people’s comfort.

I have a child. In the past few years I’ve been researching race and racism by reading, watching documentaries and TV shows and attending virtual events on the topic. I’ve learned a lot, and I’ve been able to grow my awareness of what it means to have darker skin in this society. One of the things I keep coming back to is what it means to become a parent if you’re BIPOC. Parenthood has been a wonderful experience, one in which I have learned the true meaning of unconditional love, and have been given the gift of receiving it. But parenthood is also an exercise in living with fear. From the moment your baby makes their presence known, that fear only grows. Your job as a parent is to protect your child, to teach them how to safely cross a road, to eat well, avoid danger, and take care of themselves. And yet, with every passing day, the awareness of the futility of that effort grows. Because it’s not possible to prevent every accident, to anticipate every danger, to prevent every disaster. Life inevitably brings pain, sickness and suffering. The more I learn about what it means to be BIPOC in the world, the more in awe I am of BIPOC parents. Because the dangers their children face are that much greater. And not only that, but the challenges they will face as they move further out into the world just for being who they are are massive. They inherit so much painful history, society’s erroneous expectations of inferiority and criminality, and will have to learn how to inhabit two worlds, code switching between them for any chance of objective success. They will face uphill battles to be treated fairly, to be seen as an individual, and to be allowed to simply exist in their everyday routines. I can barely sustain the fear I hold for my White, privileged child. I don’t know how BIPOC parents manage to hold up theirs. It’s the greatest exercise in hope I have encountered in my life, and the greatest act of optimism. This book delves into this reality and lays every fear and uncertainty bare. Coates does not flinch in facing his reality, but he also doesn’t allow for a defeatist attitude. For all the issues he addresses in these pages, he still expects his son to have as much right to his place in the world as anyone else’s child. I applaud him.

One other aspect of this book that I loved was that he talks about the injustice and burden of the history he carries, but he also discusses what it has given him. The sense of shared cultural identity he instantly has with any other Black person he meets in America. The strong traditions and family ties that are necessary to survive such a harsh reality. His ability to see what hardship offers in growth is inspiring and so, so important, because even those of us who have racial privilege have hardship in our lives. We all must suffer, and we can’t avoid it. What we have a choice in is our response to that. Yes, it can make us feel small, it can damage us, it can even make us give up. But it can also teach us to appreciate the things we are lucky to have. It can teach us what really matters, and to foster the connections we have with the people in our lives. It can teach us to focus on what we have instead of what we don’t, and how to be wary and protect ourselves while also reaching for freedom.

As I’m sure you can tell by now, this book blew me away. Every bit of the considerable praise that has been given to this book is well deserved, and then some. It is a vital book for every single person to read, even more so if you feel like you don’t yet understand what it means to be BIPOC in today’s world. This book is a brilliant exploration of what this experience means, and how it affects those who live it. I hope that if you haven’t read it yet, you will do so immediately. I guarantee it will repay any effort you put into it tenfold.

“This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.”
 
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
 
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Meclearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward. – Goodreads

Book Title: Between the World and Me
Author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Series: No
Edition: Paperback/Audiobook
Published By: Spiegel & Grau
Released: July 14, 2015
Genre: Non-Fiction, Race, Social Justice, Essential Reading
Pages: 152
Date Read: June 12-July 11, 2021
Rating: 10/10
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.37/5 (287,244 ratings)