‘between the World and Me’ by Ta-nehisi Coates: About the Savage World We Live in

December 2, 2021 by Essay Writer

Ta-Nehisi Coates, who attended Howard University, is a journalist and author of the book called Between the World and Me. Knowing that he is living in an America that disparages and destroys black bodies, Coates expresses his concern and writes a letter to his 15 year-old son, Samori, enlightening him of the savage world he is living in. He informs him that the only thing his son can do is to keep struggling and live a life of meaning, no matter how hard and difficult it can be.

In Coates life, he has witnessed men wearing uniforms ruthlessly murdering innocent black men and women – for something minor or for no reason at all – and not be held accountable for it. When he heard of Prince Jones’ death, it made him feel resentful, disenchanted, and indignant and awakened him that black bodies had little value in America and could be destroyed at any given moment. As he writes his book, he aims to acknowledge people, especially his own son, that they have their own place in the world – a world that refuses to promise their rights and freedom – and that it is their reality to face for they were born black.

Coates does not believe that there is hope, that one person can effect a change on the racial injustice in America, for he believes that it is unchanging. Rather, he imposes that black individuals, especially his son, should keep struggling every day. “You must struggle to truly remember this past in all its nuance, error and humanity…These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope,” Coates states. I assert that it is that struggle that makes it meaningful, that makes life endurable; it assures one an honorable and sane life.

Racial injustice in our nation has already come to me as a reality for all black Americans that they are constantly under threat. For that reason, I assert that I am sympathetic and desire to help create social justice among black communities. However, Coates presented in his book that one person cannot make a change. It might be true, but I argue that if many will rise up and take action, it could possibly make a difference. Action needs to be taken in order for change to happen; it is not right to leave problems just as they are and keep struggling, keep suffering with all the unjust regulations the justice system is constantly implementing in our society. As an easy reader, I was empathetic of the realities of the people of color he presented; however, I was unsatisfied with the way he didn’t propose solutions that he believed none existed.

Coates’ book is addressing to a nation that believes it is just to let murderers – police officers – roam free as they kill innocent black men, women, and children. In other words, they refuse the prosecution of authority. In his book, he described what his son had seen – people in uniform choking, shooting, and pummeling people of color – and from that, he told him that the police in his country have the authority to destroy his body, and that they will most likely be not held accountable for it. I assert that his audience was directed towards the hard sell given by the fact that he mentioned many deaths, caused by police officers, of black individuals.

Given that many people get heartbroken by a death of a young child, Coates mentioning his son seeing “men in uniform drive by and murder Tamir Rice, a twelve-year old child whom they were oath-bound to protect” may have hit close to home and affected both easy and hard sell readers in a way that might have allowed them to reassess the cruel, unjust ways of our criminal justice system.

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