Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ta-Nehisi Coates

Part 1:

I am uncomfortable as I listen to this narrative.

 

I am uncomfortable because this challenges what I have learned in school and in life. I am uncomfortable because I am forcing myself to think about issues that I normally push to the back of my mind, yes as a black woman I am different but I do not want to be. I was not raised “in the streets”. That place does not exist to me and it’s not an option for me to return there. Perhaps I am one of the people who “thinks they are white” according to the author. I tend to ignore the violence in our world and therefore ignore my fear of it.

 

I am uncomfortable because this makes me think about what the world is like for my nieces and nephews. Where will these young black men, my nephews, be in the future, what is their place in this world. The same for my nieces, who are not young black women but young mixed race women. What will this world hold for them. Will they make it to adulthood.

 

I am uncomfortable because of the perspective this is being presented from. Other than my father and uncles no black man has made the effort to teach me anything, to share their life experiences with me. My suburban raised mind wants to reject this man’s experience as something that I am not a part of, but I am a part of it. I am black I am separate and I am not separate.

 

Part 2:

I feel like I have more and more questions and zero answers. The author is terribly right in the way the the black body has been mistreated and abused not only throughout history but today. Right now. What can we do to change it? How can this be accomplished without losing many more lives, without extreme violence, without breaking and tearing apart more families more homes? I don’t have the answers.  

 

Part 3:

This part brings a lot together. It still doesn’t answer any of the questions that the previous parts inspired but I don’t think they are questions easily answered.


So after all my rambling thoughts overall I found this book informative. I’m not sure if that is the correct word. Maybe enlightening. My perspective has been changed. For better, for worse… I’m not sure.  

 

3 Stars