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Between the World and Me: Waking Up the Dreamers

Between the World and Me: Coates, Ta-Nehisi, Coates, Ta-Nehisi:  9780451482211: Amazon.com: Books

Books hold within them a great power–and no, not just the spellbook kind. Books have the power to inspire, to motivate, to educate, to delight. And during this strange time, I could really use a little bit of all of that. I’ve come to realize that books, and similarly, TV and film, are so powerful because they force us to do the one thing a lot of us aren’t too great at in our daily lives: listen. We’re so used to the constant chatter on social media that sometimes it feels like some of us have lost the art of heartfelt conversation. But when we’re ready to settle down and actually let others’ carefully crafted stories take the lead, we open ourselves up to empathy.

In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement, we need empathy now more than ever. We need to actually listen to the stories of our Black brethren, both those that they have been telling for years and those they are telling now.

Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me is one such story that we can turn to, one that forces readers to step outside of their known world to join the author in his. You know the saying: “You can’t understand someone until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes”? Well, never have I felt this so strongly as I did while reading this book. Coates masterfully tells his life story in a way that draws readers in and gives them new eyes with which to view the country they live in, namely the United States. (Although, of course, anyone from any other country can enjoy this book too.)

But he doesn’t just speak to the reader. No, he adds an extra layer by addressing his words to his teenage son. And I think this is why the book is so powerful in my eyes. It appears to mean something even more when you can feel the love this father has for his son. You can feel the pain, the anger that Coates feels towards the racial injustice that still follows him and his family, and you can feel just how badly he, like every other father, wants his son to inherit a better world than the one he himself grew up in. He tells the whole ugly truth because he wants his son (and his readers) to understand, but at the same time, you can tell he wishes more than anything that such a truth did not exist.

As Coates tells the story of his life and of the hardships he and so many others have faced on a daily basis, a few motifs tend to pop up throughout his narrative. Ultimately, they all point to the major factors that appear to divide him from the majority of Americans.

The Race Factor

Throughout this book, it is clear that race plays an important role in Coates’ life, as his black skin appears to be the thing that separates him from the world, or, more specifically, from the world of White America. The thing about race, though, is that it shouldn’t have to matter, but the truth is that it does. Race has mattered for a long time.

When we think about race, one of the first topics that probably comes to mind is racism. We hear about it all the time. We continue to see the harm that it does. Think, for instance, of the thousands of Black people who have been wrongfully convicted in the United States. According to the Innocent Project’s website, “To be a black person in America is to be seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder and three times more likely to be wrongly convicted of sexual assault as compared to white people.” It’s crazy to think that this is our reality. It certainly shouldn’t be. But this is the pattern that we have seen for years. Just imagine how many people, how many friends, neighbors, family members have lost years of their life in prison for a crime they didn’t commit. Think of the milestones they’ve missed and of the people who love and miss them and wish more than anything their loved ones can return to society.

But racism doesn’t just show itself in the form of wrongful convictions (or in the form of police brutality). It can also appear in much subtler ways, such as in daily interactions with strangers. For example, Coates mentions an instance in which a white woman physically pushed his young son to get him to move quicker as they were stepping off an escalator. She had no patience for this small child who was in front of her, and she treated him more like he was an obstacle rather than a human being. Ta-Nehisi viewed this event through the lens of his people, through the racial and class divide that separates him and his son from this woman. He explains that “she was acting according to a tradition that held black bodies as lesser” (61). Even though the woman might not have believed her actions to be racist, the racism is still there, whether acknowledged as such or not.

Although racism is important to acknowledge, race applies in other situations as well. For one thing, it’s a pretty huge factor when it comes to recounting our history, which is something that Coates definitely acknowledges: “Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental ‘firsts’—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit” (29). (Just as a reminder, this narrative is addressed to his son, so when he says “your grandparents,” he’s talking about his own parents. Okay, side note over.) To be honest, I didn’t really start learning about Black American history until I got to college. Before that, school basically just taught me about slavery and the Jim Crow Laws and the Civil Rights Movement. And that was just the bare basics. I didn’t truly grasp slavery’s horrors until I read actual slave narratives in my American Literature classes, and I barely understood the repercussions of slavery until I got a taste of them in those same classes. I guess I needed to see through the eyes of the victims, through the eyes of those who lived and suffered in those times, rather than through those of a history textbook. I needed to learn about these difficult points in our history through individuals’ stories, not through mere facts. Though I do appreciate learning about history and have enjoyed most of my history classes, it is the power of literature which truly helps me understand. But I still have much more to learn, and America has much more to learn. There’s so much more to Black American history than we can even imagine. There’s more to celebrate about Black Americans than the “firsts,” although those firsts are an essential first step to a better future.

In the face of it all, in the face of all the injustice, Coates takes the power back. He reclaims the race narrative when he writes: “They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people” (91). He and other Black Americans are united not just by the color of their skin but by the history and the burden of that history that they share. But they’ve also been able to cultivate a culture and a kinship together, which only makes them stronger.

grayscale photo of men playing musical instruments

The Prince Jones Incident

Of everything that ever happened, the Prince Jones incident served as perhaps one of the most significant moments in the author’s life. He had met Prince while they both were studying at Howard University. While he wasn’t Prince’s closest friend, he was still a good friend to him, and Coates was happy when the guy was around.

But everything changed when he found out one day through The Washington Post that an officer had shot Prince, who was only twenty-five then, while he was on his way to his fiancée’s house. He had been killed only yards away from her home because, the officer claimed, the victim had tried to run him over with his jeep.

This incident tore Coates apart. It’s not like this kind of terrible crime was unheard of. Police brutality happened all the time, and, as we are seeing now, this continues to be the case. But this was personal. This was the loss of someone he knew, someone he loved. He knew that the world had lost a beautiful soul, and the injustice of it all was just unbearable. But he invites his son, as well as the reader, into his grief by forcing us to imagine all that was lost that day. It was so much more than the loss of a body:

“Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth” (51).

Coates reminds us here that every soul has been influenced by its past, whether that past can be designated good or bad. It’s a life into which so much has been poured. And for those souls, like Prince’s, who have been taken too soon, those souls, those lives, are missing out on a future. Who knows what Prince could have achieved had he been given the chance? Who knows whom he could have loved and been loved by (aside from his future wife and their infant daughter)? The world will never know because his killer took his future away from him. And now Prince is known, similarly to the cases of people like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, not by how he lived, but by how he died.

Christianity vs. Atheism

As a Christian who attended a Christian university and whose life is influenced by the hope of the Gospel, I found the way Coates describes his relationship with religion particularly interesting. In short, he is an atheist. The author’s views on faith might not mean much to some, but I think it’s still important to address them. The fact that he repeatedly brings it up seems to suggest it means quite a bit to him, especially since his atheism has a major impact on the way he views his life and even on the way he views the loss of Prince Jones.

Christians’ faith directly influences how they see and interact with the world. It helps to know that in the midst of one’s earthly struggles, even those arising from diseases such as racism, God is there. God protects and gives one hope to meet the challenges of the day. But without God in his life, Coates looks at the world in a vastly different way. In his attempt to explain his personal worldview, he writes: “I could not retreat, as did so many, into the church and its mysteries. My parents rejected all dogmas… We would not kneel before their God. And so I had no sense that any just God was on my side. ‘The meek shall inherit the earth’ meant nothing to me. The meek were battered in West Baltimore, stomped out at Walbrook Junction, bashed up on Park Heights, and raped in the showers of the city jail. My understanding of the universe was physical, and its moral arc bent toward chaos then concluded in a box” (20). Coates did not grow up with Christianity, and thus, he could not see the world through the lens of the Gospel. His truth lay not in the words of the Bible but instead in the destruction of Black bodies. He could not see a just God at work because all he saw was the injustice in front of him. He saw his people suffering, and he saw the justice system fail to bring justice to the victims. His worldview is based purely on reality rather than on spirituality.

Because Coates did not consider himself religious, he, unlike many of his peers, didn’t believe any sort of life exists after the one we are born into. Christians have the comfort of knowing that we have something to look forward to, that we can find peace through Christ. This concept was something Prince himself believed and that many in his community also believed and clung to. But Coates believed that as soon as his friend lost his life, that was it. One life. One death. The end of a story. So when he attended his friend’s funeral, he clearly felt the impact of this divide in ideas: “When the assembled mourners bowed their heads in prayer, I was divided from them because I believed that the void would not answer back” (50). He understood that faith gave his fellow funeral attendees a bit of hope. He understood that they believe God is taking care of Prince, but Coates himself could not feel the same. How could he expect anything good to happen for his friend if a soul to him is merely “the voltage conducted through neurons and nerves” (50)? Prince’s soul, according to this belief, stopped existing once he drew his last breath, and so the promise of heaven could not give the grieving writer any peace.

Although the history of Christianity in the U.S. is complicated, especially when it comes to the role it played in marginalized and enslaved communities, many Black Americans have relied on faith to guide them in their daily lives. As an atheist, Coates does not turn to God himself, but he has wondered if perhaps there is something to this particular religion: “I thought of my own distance from an institution that has, so often, been the only support for our people. I often wonder if in that distance I’ve missed something, some notions of cosmic hope, some wisdom beyond my mean physical perception of the world, something beyond the body” (84). He sees what Christianity has provided for his people, and, even if he has not adopted this faith into his life, he acknowledges the value it can provide.

grayscale photography of praying hands

The Clash Between the Dream and the World

Perhaps one of the most eye-opening ideas in this book for me is that of the Dream. I admit that I didn’t quite understand this concept at first, but once I got it, it shocked me how much of an impact the Dream has on our daily lives. I don’t think there’s just one way to sum up exactly what the Dream looks like, but Coates gives the reader a pretty good summation of it: “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” (10). So basically it looks like the picture-perfect American life–the kind of life so many immigrants have longed for, the kind of life so many Americans have fought for. The images the author describes here are just some of many that may come to mind when we think of life in the United States, but no matter how we each picture the Dream, the unifying idea is that this life is inclusive and inviting. We are the “great American melting pot” after all. Anyone is welcome, anyone can be successful, anyone can live the Dream that’s been advertised to them through movies and novels. At least, that’s what we would like everyone to think.

But the truth is not everyone gets to live this idealized American life. Not even some of those who can call themselves Americans. Coates, as a Black man, certainly feels removed from the Dream. He acknowledges though that he wishes he, too, could embrace it and claim it as his own: “And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies” (11). In order for the Dream to persist, a “real world” must also exist. This real world, unfortunately, is a lot uglier than anything we imagined it would be when we were younger. It certainly doesn’t compare to a world like, say, Neverland or Wonderland. One of the reasons for that (aside from the obvious–lack of fairy dust and singing flowers) is that in this real world, we don’t have clear villains like Captain Hook or the Queen of Hearts. The wickedness is less obvious and much closer to home, and it’s something that prevents real people from living the lives they deserve. Because let’s face it. No one deserves to live their lives in constant fear. No one should have to feel like their lives matter a little less than those of others. But kids like Ta-Nehisi’s son have been forced to wake up from the Dream far too early, and they’re faced with a world that isn’t quite as beautiful as they once thought it was.

But this year more than most, I believe we are starting to see the Dream fragmenting. Now don’t get me wrong. The signs have always been here that many of us have been living in a blissfully ignorant state, and there have always been people trying to point that out to us. But in 2020 especially, when it seemed like our world was literally falling apart, when we saw (and continue to see) some of the worst of humanity, people are starting to wake up. Thanks to the efforts of activists across the country and to the widespread information available to us through social media, we are starting to see some real change. Just look at what the BLM movement has accomplished. Communities, not just in the United States, but around the world, are becoming aware and are willing to demand a better future. Maybe someday, hopefully sooner rather than later, we’ll see a brighter world for all people, no matter what they look like.

Final Thoughts

Between the World and Me spoke to me on multiple levels, but I’m especially thankful for the way it allowed me to step back from the headlines to delve deeper into the truth because the fact of the matter is that there is so much more going on in this country than what we’re seeing in the media. There’s so much more behind the rallying cry of “Black Lives Matter!” than what we see on protestors’ signs. It is my hope that we can all continue to learn and to listen, even if we might not be seeing George Floyd’s or Breonna Taylor’s names around quite as much as we did before. The struggle continues even if it sometimes seems like the world is trying to move on.

I think one of the best ways to keep this conversation going, aside from posting about it on social media, is to bring the conversation to the classroom. In fact, as soon as I finished reading this book, I realized that students should be reading works like this too, if not this one specifically. There are so many antiracist books out there, including Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, which is another fantastic read. (It’s not a history book, but it traces the roots of racism in an entertaining and enlightening way.) Although race can be an uncomfortable topic, I believe it is important for students to be aware of the ways it affects them and their peers. In order for them to best be prepared to fight for a better future, they will need to learn, not just from textbooks or from the classics, but also from the stories of modern individuals who have been wronged by the Dreamers and want to see real progress for future generations.

Dreamers of America, we can no longer stay silent and hide behind the comfort of the Dream. It is time that we break this spell, once and for all. It is time that we wake up and join the struggle.

grayscale photo of man and woman holding their hands

Works Cited

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. E-book, Random House Publishing Group, 2015.

Maule, Alicia. “#BlackBehindBars: Sparking a Conversation on the Black Wrongful Conviction Experience in the U.S.” Innocence Project, 04 Feb. 2019, innocenceproject.org/blackbehindbars-sparking-a-conversation-on-the-black-wrongful-conviction-experience-in-the-u-s/.

One Comment

  • Richard Johnson

    I must say, I really enjoyed reading your review and thoughts about this book. Having grown up in a rather racist community (the “Deep South”), it never made sense to me, but that was because I tried to make sense of it all logically and simply couldn’t, so I rejected it all. After moving to California, I saw the exact same racism I had previous seen against black people, but here it’s directed toward Mexicans. It still doesn’t make sense, so I continue to reject it all. I just refuse to see it. I view it the same as treating a person differently based upon their eye color. Just doesn’t make sense. But, of course, I have no way to really understand the life which other people are forced to live. I try to see it from their point of view, but I really can’t, because I haven’t lived it, as they did. My way of dealing with it all (racism and sexism also) is to just try to treat everyone as I would a loved member of my family. If they break that illusion by treating me differently, then I mirror what I receive, but the initial assumption is that you are a valuable and interesting person who wants a free and welcoming world, just as I do. Yes, we can’t all have the Dream, but we all work toward it, and one step is one step closer than we were.

    Ok, I’ll stop preaching. 🙂

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