Library's review
We have taken the one-drop rules of Dreamers and flipped them. They made us into a race. We made ourselves into a people.
I'm not sure this is really a review. I finished this book two weeks ago and I still haven’t fully processed everything I read and learned about the state of being black in
The message itself was a sucker punch for me, even as I pride myself on having suitably enlightened views about equality and race relations. Coates does not give credit for trying; there is no A for effort in these pages for progressive whites because, as Coates so eloquently shows, none of us are doing enough to right the lasting effects of our collective historical sin, slavery. In graphic terms Coates demonstrates just how those aftereffects are still being felt, and the ways that “those who believe they are white” lie to themselves, each other, and people of color made me extremely uncomfortable. Which I suspect is at least partly his point:
They have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world. I am convinced that the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free.
But I fear I am misrepresenting this book to you. It is not an unrelenting jeremiad enumerating all the ways that the majority class has subjugated and made life impossible for the minority. Coates isn’t afraid to turn his critical lens on himself, and he openly relates the ways in which his preconceived notions about race have been upended over time. The turning point for him was attending Howard University, a historically black college that he refers to as Mecca. There for the first time he realized the full spectrum of what it meant to be black:
I saw everything I knew of my black self multiplied out into seemingly endless variation. There were the scions of Nigerian aristocrats in their business suits giving dap to bald-headed Qs in purple windbreakers and tan Timbs. There were the high-yellow progeny of AME preachers debating the clerics of Ausar-Set. There were California girls turned Muslim, born anew, in hijab and long skirt. There were Ponzi schemers and Christian cultists, Tabernacle fanatics and mathematical geniuses. It was like listening to a hundred different renditions of “Redemption Song,” each in a different color and key.
The lessons Coates learned at Howard — few of which were absorbed in classrooms, he readily admits — as well as later insights gained from an extended trip to Paris and his eventual settling in New York to raise his family, helped shape him into the man and the extraordinary writer he is today. A man who can rage, rage, against the injustice that his people have been subjected to, without giving in to despair or acting out in anger. Above all, he is clear-eyed about the the way the world really is.
We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world.
I marked so many more quotes in this books, all representing either moments where Coates caused me to see something in a completely new light, or made me rethink an assumption I hadn’t even realized I held until he shattered it. I’ll just leave you with this:
The power is not divinity but a deep knowledge of how fragile everything — even the Dream, especially the Dream — really is.
I'm not sure this is really a review. I finished this book two weeks ago and I still haven’t fully processed everything I read and learned about the state of being black in
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21st century America. It’s written as an open letter to the author’s teenage son and while Coates maintains the framing device consistently throughout the book it never becomes intrusive or detracts from the message.The message itself was a sucker punch for me, even as I pride myself on having suitably enlightened views about equality and race relations. Coates does not give credit for trying; there is no A for effort in these pages for progressive whites because, as Coates so eloquently shows, none of us are doing enough to right the lasting effects of our collective historical sin, slavery. In graphic terms Coates demonstrates just how those aftereffects are still being felt, and the ways that “those who believe they are white” lie to themselves, each other, and people of color made me extremely uncomfortable. Which I suspect is at least partly his point:
They have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. They have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful Dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world. I am convinced that the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free.
But I fear I am misrepresenting this book to you. It is not an unrelenting jeremiad enumerating all the ways that the majority class has subjugated and made life impossible for the minority. Coates isn’t afraid to turn his critical lens on himself, and he openly relates the ways in which his preconceived notions about race have been upended over time. The turning point for him was attending Howard University, a historically black college that he refers to as Mecca. There for the first time he realized the full spectrum of what it meant to be black:
I saw everything I knew of my black self multiplied out into seemingly endless variation. There were the scions of Nigerian aristocrats in their business suits giving dap to bald-headed Qs in purple windbreakers and tan Timbs. There were the high-yellow progeny of AME preachers debating the clerics of Ausar-Set. There were California girls turned Muslim, born anew, in hijab and long skirt. There were Ponzi schemers and Christian cultists, Tabernacle fanatics and mathematical geniuses. It was like listening to a hundred different renditions of “Redemption Song,” each in a different color and key.
The lessons Coates learned at Howard — few of which were absorbed in classrooms, he readily admits — as well as later insights gained from an extended trip to Paris and his eventual settling in New York to raise his family, helped shape him into the man and the extraordinary writer he is today. A man who can rage, rage, against the injustice that his people have been subjected to, without giving in to despair or acting out in anger. Above all, he is clear-eyed about the the way the world really is.
We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world.
I marked so many more quotes in this books, all representing either moments where Coates caused me to see something in a completely new light, or made me rethink an assumption I hadn’t even realized I held until he shattered it. I’ll just leave you with this:
The power is not divinity but a deep knowledge of how fragile everything — even the Dream, especially the Dream — really is.
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Description
"For Ta-Nehisi Coates, history has always been personal. At every stage of his life, he's sought in his explorations of history answers to the mysteries that surrounded him -- most urgently, why he, and other black people he knew, seemed to live in fear. What were they afraid of? In Tremble for My Country, Coates takes readers along on his journey through America's history of race and its contemporary resonances through a series of awakenings -- moments when he discovered some new truth about our long, tangled history of race, whether through his myth-busting professors at Howard University, a trip to a Civil War battlefield with a rogue historian, a journey to Chicago's South Side to visit aging survivors of 20th century America's 'long war on black people,' or a visit with the mother of a beloved friend who was shot down by the police. In his trademark style -- a mix of lyrical personal narrative, reimagined history, essayistic argument, and reportage -- Coates provides readers a thrillingly illuminating new framework for understanding race: its history, our contemporary dilemma, and where we go from here"--… (more)
Media reviews
Between the World and Me is, in important ways, a book written toward white Americans, and I say this as one them. White Americans may need to read this book more urgently and carefully than anyone, and their own sons and daughters need to read it as well. This is not to say this is a book about
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white people, but rather that it is a terrible mistake for anyone to assume that this is just a book about nonwhite people. In the broadest terms Between the World and Me is about the cautious, tortured, but finally optimistic belief that something beyond these categories persists. Implicit in this book’s existence is a conviction that people are fundamentally reachable, perhaps not all of them but enough, that recognition and empathy are within grasp, that words and language are capable of changing people, even if—especially if—those words are not ones people prefer to hear. Show Less
Publishers Weekly
In the scant space of barely 160 pages, Atlantic national correspondent Coates (The Beautiful Struggle) has composed an immense, multifaceted work. This is a poet's book, revealing the sensibility of a writer to whom words—exact words—matter....It's also a journalist's book, not only because it
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speaks so forcefully to issues of grave interest today, but because of its close attention to fact...As a meditation on race in America, haunted by the bodies of black men, women, and children, Coates's compelling, indeed stunning, work is rare in its power to make you want to slow down and read every word. This is a book that will be hailed as a classic of our time. Show Less
Awards
National Book Award (Finalist — Nonfiction — 2015)
Pulitzer Prize (Finalist — General Non-Fiction — 2016)
Kirkus Prize (Finalist — Nonfiction — 2015)
National Book Critics Circle Award (Finalist — 2015)
Pacific Northwest Library Association Young Reader's Choice Award (Nominee — 2018)
Alex Award (2016)
The Economist Best Books (2015.1)
Indies Choice Book Award (Winner — Adult Nonfiction — 2016)
Green Mountain Book Award (Nominee — 2017)
Dayton Literary Peace Prize (Shortlist — Nonfiction — 2016)
Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction (Longlist — Nonfiction — 2016)
ALA Notable Book (Nonfiction — 2016)
Street Literature Book Award (Adult Non-Fiction — 2016)
PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay (Finalist — 2016)
NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Nominee — Debut Author — 2016)
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2015)
Booklist Editor's Choice: Adult Books (Social Sciences — 2015)
NPR: Books We Love (2015)
Boston Globe Best Book (Nonfiction — 2015)
Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year (Nonfiction — 2015)
The New York Times Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2015)
The Observer Book of the Year (Politics — 2015)
Library Journal Top Ten Book (2015)
The A.V. Club best books (2015)
Notable Books List (Nonfiction — 2016)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (2015)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Non-Fiction — 2015)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2015)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2015-07-14