I just finished reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, Between the World and Me. This was the only book I pre-ordered for 2015. I ordered it for a few reasons, initially. The greatest of these was the sole endorsement appearing on the book: "This is required reading." Coates' 152-page letter carries exactly one endorsement, and it's from Toni Morrison. The rest of my reasons follow the theme of this blog; this is what I'm interested in reading. I read books on social justice and diversity and race and gender and violence and love and hatred and forgiveness, for work, for fun, for a reminder.
One of the biggest challenges I face when reading is remembering to read as who the world views me as. To the vast majority of people I meet, I am white. When I am in a private place, I tend to forget that. Growing up, I have never self-identified as white or as a POC. I don't think I've ever "identified" as anything, which is probably the single most obvious indicator that I am, in fact, white. I grew up Latino and Jewish, but with pasty white skin. Usually, when I am reading theory or something along those lines, this is not really a big factor. I'm reading with my brain, not my identity. Between the World and Me is one text that has really reminded me to put myself back in my place.
The concept of Between the World and Me is the form of a letter. Coates is writing a letter to his fifteen-year old son, Samori, about the challenges of living as a black man in America in 2015. The root of this comes from Samori's difficulty dealing with the countless lives of black men, especially those close in age to Samori, being put out by criminal "justice," or power-hungry police. Coates spends the length of the letter reflecting on his own experience with the injustices of race in America, relaying those experiences and acknowledging the differences between his own and his son's, and giving what advice he can to Samori as he grows.
It is this format that gives me the most trouble with the book; as I sit here, I want to tear this book down to each individual letter and punctuation mark, treat it like theory, read it with my critical-colored glasses, and turn it into an essay in my brain. But as I read it, I find myself continually remembering that this is a letter, from a father to his son. The book was published on a grand, public scale, but this is a personal piece of correspondence, a father telling his son how to deal and how to survive and how to thrive, if he can. This is a father telling his son about an experience I can never have, so many people can never have, and that I will never come close to understanding, no matter how many narratives or how much theory I read.
I keep catching myself relating certain phrases in this book to other types of struggles, and I wish I didn't, because I have no desire to co-opt Coates' struggle for my own or someone else's. This is the tricky thing with narratives - there is so much in the beginning of Between the World and Me that, out of context, falls seamlessly into a transgender narrative, and I'm sure some others, but that isn't what this is. This is one man's story - one man who ties his identity up, for at least this moment, in being a black father to a black boy - nothing I know anything about.
I was reading through some of the reviews on Goodreads while preparing to write this, and I wasn't surprised at all to see that the majority of them were by who Coates refers to as "those who think they're white." The first review I read, though? Rick Riordan. You know, Percy Jackson and all that. In my head, the quintessential white male author of chapter books. This is a guy I know absolutely nothing about. And it's funny, because I guess until then, I just assumed that chapter book authors didn't exist outside of their chapter books - I had never assumed that Riordan would be the one to pick up this book. In fact, I'd never assumed anything about him. I forgot about him as soon as I finished pricing or shelving one of his books. But Riordan's review helped me put a lot of my own thoughts in order. The key point? "Coates' story is not so much about making sense as it is about finding one's place in a nonsensical context." That's what it is. Coates' book isn't an attempt to help Whitey understand why Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin being shot and killed isn't okay. The book isn't for Whitey at all. I'm not even sure this book is for anyone other than Samori. It isn't an effort to help Whitey feel better about themselves, or a call to action or the defense or racial justice. In fact, it ends with Coates telling Samori that the only thing that can fix this is that "[the Dreamers] must ultimately stop themselves...the Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for the Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all (p 151)." Coates tells his son that he has to continue struggling for his ancestors, but to realize that his struggle won't mean anything until those who call themselves white end it themselves.
This is the same argument that Michelle Alexander makes in the beginning of The New Jim Crow, where she argues that the people in power have to break down the walls of "systems of racialized social control" or another form will just replace the old one. Those who are being oppressed, discriminated against, murdered, aren't the ones in position to overthrow the system doing the oppressing. Coates isn't naive. He knows this. He also knows that he has struggled his entire life and that there is no god to pray to, that the struggle has not done anything sincere. He also acknowledges that things are different for his son. His son's president is black; his son thought justice would be brought against the killer of Michael Brown.
Things can be different but still the same. That's what this book is about.
If you can handle a constant barrage of emotion, guilt, and a little bit of that feeling where you think you're invading someone's personal thoughts, I recommend this book. I don't recommend you go into it with the idea of, "Alright, Ta-Nehisi, how can I be a better ally?" If you've read this blog since the beginning, you know how I feel about allies. I get the sense that Coates feels similarly, but in a different respect. Coates doesn't want your allyship. He wants us to wake up, break the system we put in place, or silently tolerated, and he wants his son to be around for this book's 50-year anniversary. Coates' book is intended for his son; it is not a self-help book for the white consciousness that feels the need to do penance for crimes against black bodies in this century or any other.
