A Book A Week

"I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world."

I've always attempted to keep my reading and reviewing somewhat separate from my own political beliefs. My love of reading started as a means to escape into the fictitious worlds that authors conjured, and veering into the real world threatened to dismantle that sense of escapism. Recently, however, the real world has resembled something more akin to the dystopian fantasy of fiction than what I ever imagined the real world could be. Over the past several years, I've explored more non-fiction, reading about the world we live in and gaining perspective from different voices. As I watched the violent events at the US Capitol unfold, I happened to be reading Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Now more than ever, I feel the need to continue to read books like this one and share them with everyone who reads my reviews. 

What does it mean to be a black man in America? How does one come to the terms with racial inequity, especially when that inequity directly affects you and your family? These are the topics that Coates muses upon in this letter/essay to his teenage son. He writes with a raw honesty that is as riveting as it is heartbreaking. There is little hope in these words. Coates is clearly jaded by the reality of his lived experience. He writes of the fear he felt when he first realized that other people felt dominion over his very being, the power to take his life on a whim. That sense of dread only grew when he witnessed his son coming to the same realizations. 

Coates writes of his experience attending Howard University and finally finding a place where his free thought could be encouraged and respected. The HBCU became his "mecca", the safe place for him to explore the best parts of humanity. This is the place he discovered his ability to learn and love. Even in this place of solace, the original sin of our country invaded. Coates writes of a friend who was murdered by the police, a reminder that there is no escaping the horrors of racism. 

Between the World and Me is a stunning portrait of one man's lived experience. Ta-Nehisi Coates writes with a startling urgency, a plea to his son to understand how the world views and treats people who look like them. Coates writes of the despair that befell his son as he realized the scope of racial inequities. This burden should not be one a child has to bear, but every BIPOC must come to terms with it. As difficult as it is to read of this reality, it is vitally important to understand it. Coates seems resigned to the inevitability of racism. How can he not be when his entire life has proven this correct? Watching the siege on Washington DC unfold, I couldn't help but see the double standard glaring across my TV screen. The lack of urgency and violence in the response to these domestic terrorists, especially compared to the response to peaceful BLM protestors, is too obvious to ignore. Works like this one are vital in revealing these realities to those who do not live them. Only then can we truly begin to change things. 

For more information visit the author's website, Amazon, and Goodreads. 

(2021, 3)