Feminist Book Club: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me

Acclaimed essayist and The Atlantic staff writer Ta-Nehisi Coates published Between the World and Me in June of 2015. Released in the immediate aftermath of the Charleston church massacre, the book has been heralded as the voice of Black America during a particularly gut-wrenching moment in black history. Between the World and Me has no shortage of accolades—National Book Award, NAACP Image Award, New York Times Bestseller to name a few. However, Between the World and Me has nearly as many detractors as it has fans—due in no small part to Coates’ trademark convention-flouting style.
In the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death, the streets of Ferguson, Missouri and many other US cities were awash in grief, indignation, and fear. As many black parents do each time an encounter with police leaves an unarmed black person dead, Coates struggled to know how to help his then 15-year-old son, Somari, to make sense of a world in which unarmed boys and men who look like him can lose their lives in the blink of an eye. Inspired by James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Coates decided to write an opus on the current black experience in America in the form of a letter to his son—and Between the World and Me was born.
In Between the World and Me, Coates describes his experience growing up in crime-ravaged Baltimore, and his daily fight to remain free from the deadly grip of crime, violence, and drugs. It is during this time that Coates becomes peripherally aware of those to whom he refers as “The Dreamers,” or white people comfortably unfettered by the knowledge that they are participants in an oppressive legacy. In his years at Howard University, Coates finally seems to find some solace in the world of black academia that is committed to nurturing his talent and potential. During his time there, however, his newfound sense of safety is shattered when his friend Prince Jones is killed in an encounter with police. Disillusioned and heartsick, Coates describes how he dropped out soon after to pursue freelance journalism.

Throughout the narrative, Coates outlines the casual microaggressions that he and his circle encountered on a daily basis. He highlights the maddening nature of a life lived in the shadow of a perpetual question—Why did x happen to me? If any single slight were to be taken on its face, it might be attributed to some factor other than race. But a lifetime of (often, but not always) subtle mistreatment is hard to explain away by chance when it is echoed by an entire section of the population. All the while, another echelon of people, the Dreamers, live out their lives completely oblivious to their de facto co-signing of a system that privileges them and disenfranchises others.
The book stalwartly refuses to do what one might guess it would. Coates does not comfort his son or tell him everything will be all right if he simply believes in himself—quite the opposite, in fact. Coates is unflinching in his truth-telling, and he is candid about the fact that he made a conscious choice not to soothe his son with platitudes. Rather, the book seems to seek only to prepare black youth to live in a world that not only does not care about them, and does not see them as valuable—but is overtly hostile to them, and sees their bodies as disposable chattel.
Not surprisingly, this book can be uncomfortable for a white audience to digest. The indictment of white America is clearly a factor in this discomfort, but there is a subtler slight at work—the book is not written for a white audience. There is no attempt to soothe white guilt, any more than there is to soothe black fear. Coates has gotten much criticism for this fact. In addition, many have accused him of inciting racial tension without offering any solutions to racially charged problems.
Therein lies a crucial point. Coates has not claimed to write a prescriptive essay. Between the World and Me is not a handbook for fixing America’s race problem. It offers no cures or easy fixes. But I, for one, disagree with the notion that Between the World and Me cannot be a part of the changemaking process. In structuring the book as a letter to his son, Coates affords us an intimate and brutally honest look at what it means to be a black person in American culture. He shows us the rawness, the viscerality of living in the ether of fear and injustice. This is a perspective that no white person will ever have firsthand—the closest facsimile comes from being open to accepting black people’s narratives when they are brave enough to share them. Many white people will never go out of their way to ask a person of color what it feels like to be in their shoes. Between the World and Me is one answer to that too often unasked question.

It is not Ta-Nehisi Coates’ job to fix American racism, and he makes no such claims. Culture does not meaningfully shift because one person decrees it should do so. Rather, culture changes when there is a collective consciousness-raising—when the narrative of the oppressed is brought to light, and as a result, the many can no longer ignore the humanity of the few. If you’re a person of color, Between the World and Me provides a solemn meditation on injustice and survival in a hostile world. If you’re white, Between the World and Me was not written for you—but you should read it anyway.
Next month’s selection: Trainwreck: The Women We Love to Hate, Mock, and Fear…and Why, by Sady Doyle