Well Read

WELL READ By: Sherri D. Alley, J.D.

Pinnacle Financial Partners

BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME, BY TA-NEHISI COATES

I believe that the key to understanding race and racism in the United States must begin with empathy. Particularly for those of us “who believe themselves to be white,”1 we must suspend what we think we know from our experience of American life and attempt to see and feel the world entirely through the eyes and experience of a person whom we would identify as being of another race. To do so honestly, we must discard any skepticism or inclination to doubt and wholeheartedly embrace the validity and credibility of other person’s point of view, just as we would for the main character in any moving novel or blockbuster movie. This exercise typically cannot and should not be attempted within the context of a personal relationship; the costs and risk of injury (even if unintentional) are simply too great. Instead, we must educate ourselves. Toward that end, I propose Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is a necessary part of one’s personal curriculum.2

In this #1 New York Times Bestseller, Ta-Nehisi Coates lends readers his eyes as he writes a poignant letter to his adolescent son about what it means to be a black American male. His style is both eloquent and deeply emotional as he recounts and reflects on his experience of American life in various stages as dark-skinned adolescent, college student, new father, American tourist abroad, and father of a teenaged dark-skinned American boy. The vignettes Coates shares in this work vividly portray the feelings of internal conflict, powerlessness, sense of belonging, and thirst for knowledge that mark his life story. I suspect it was this emotionally evocative writing style that propelled Between the World and Me to win the 2015 National Book Award, become a Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and be labeled “required reading” by celebrated author Toni Morrison.

The title, Between the World and Me, is borrowed from Richard Wright’s 1957 poem about a lynching and reflects how race is an omnipresent lens for black Americans, constantly interposing itself on one’s experience of life in American society with both visceral and physical effects. Coates first points out that the concept of race was a invented by people with power, aimed at categorizing people by “hue and hair” for the purpose of maintaining a power hierarchy through cruel acts “meant, first and foremost, to deny [black people] the right to secure and govern [their] own bodies.”3 Thus begins theme that emerges throughout: “Race” has no biological basis, but throughout the entire history of America and into the present, racism entirely delineates the relative value of black bodies in America, thereby indelibly shaping black minds, behaviors, and lives.

Coates’s goal for his son is clear: “My work is to give you what I know of my own particular path while allowing you to walk your own. You can no more be black like I am black than I could be black like your grandfather was. And still, I maintain that even for a cosmopolitan boy like you, there is something to be found there—a base, even in these modern times, a port in the American storm.”4 And so, through deeply personal narratives, Coates examines his life and its lessons: the violence and fear of his youth; his euphoric sense of belonging and the breadth of black culture at Howard University; and self-taught knowledge gained through voracious reading, writing and questioning. Because these narratives are written for the purpose of guiding his son into wisdom, they are intimate and unvarnished, allowing readers a precious and rare glimpse into precisely how the experience of growing up as a black American can be vastly different than for many white Americans.

Between the World and Me also masterfully illustrates, as the title suggests, Coates’s perpetual sense of separateness or distance or “otherness” in relation to American society at large, which I understand is shared by many black Americans. White Americans often struggle to understand this feeling, precisely because American society does not interact with us in the same manner as it does black people and many of us have the luxury of refusing to consider any perspective beyond our own experience. Describing suburban white Americans as if they exist in the perpetual dreamscape of a “most gorgeous dream,” Coates writes,

“I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is treehouses and the Cub Scouts. The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket.”5 Coates, who is atheist, concludes his work by expressing his mixed emotions of fear and hope for the future “because [the Dreamers] must ultimately stop themselves.”6 As a Christian, I am more hopeful and implore every American to read this book and attempt to understand through Coates’s eyes, especially those who wonder why race is “such a big deal” or who care to improve themselves and America.

1 In order to emphasize the fact that racial classifications have no basis in biology, but rather exist as a social construct with fluid definitions, Ta-Nehisi Coates often refers to people typically thought of as “white people” as “people who believe themselves to be white.” For the sake of brevity, this article will hereafter use the terms “black” and “white” as they are typically used in modern American parlance, but I mean neither disrespect to nor disagreement with the phrasing Coates uses or its purpose. 2 For those who have little time or inclination to read it in print, Between the World and Me, is available in audio format on both Audible and Apple Books. On both platforms, the work is read by the author himself, which may be even better than the print version! 3 Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, 6-8 (2015). 4 Id. at 39. 5 Id. at 11. 6 Id. at 151.