Between the World and Me - Ta-Nehisi Coates

“You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this.”

In February, I try to focus my reading on black authors and black history. Between the World and Me has been on my list for quite some time. I've seen Ta-Nehisi Coates in videos and on the daily show, and I've always appreciated his perspective on issues and the way in which he presents them. 

A letter from a father to a son. A letter from a black man to a black teen. A letter from a black man to white America. A letter from the soul of a person, to the unending silence that answers us in return whenever we share something so deep that no response is adequate.

This is a very moving and illuminating look at race and racism in America. In the way that the belief in American exceptionalism requires an ignorance of the policies and practices which have propelled the American experience for centuries. 

“And they are torturing Muslims, and their drones are bombing wedding parties (by accident!), and the Dreamers are quoting Martin Luther King and exulting nonviolence for the weak and the biggest guns for the strong.”

It would be wrong to say Ta-Nehisi Coates is the only voice discussing race, politics, and intersectionality in America. He is however, one of the most powerful voices to recently take up the conversation. It would also be wrong to assume that his view is representative of all African Americans. Or that he can speak for black women who have not gained the name-recognition, but still have powerful and illuminating stories all their own. But anytime we take a step outside ourselves and our known world to try to really hear and understand the experience of someone else, without judgment - whenever we are really open to listening with our ears and mind open, then the collective experience of being American is all the better. All the better that this audio version was narrated by Coates himself. 

I was moved by this book, truly moved. And humbled. And thankful.

5/5 Stars.