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A review by whatevanreads
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
emotional
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Rereading Between the World and Me was the best decision I've made in a long time. I first read this 4 years ago(!) back in 2020 and remember sitting in awe for a long time after turning that final page. I could sit here and wax poetic about how visceral Coates's prose is, how undeniably raw his accounts of life as a Black man in America are, and how deeply moving his unbridled love for his son is, but instead I will just quote one of the most profound excerpts from any book I've ever read.
This excerpt is taken from the section dedicated to describing the aftermath of the horrific m*rder of one of Coates's friends from Howard at the hands of a cop:
"There were times where I imagined myself like Prince, tracked through many jurisdictions by a man in a criminal's costume. And I was horrified because I knew what I would have done with such a man confronting me, gun drawn, mere feet from my own family's home. Take care of my baby, your grandmother had said, which was to say Take care of your new family. But I now knew the limits of my caring, the limits of its powers, etched by an enemy old as Virginia. I thought of all the beautiful black people I'd seen at The Mecca, all their variation, all their hair, all their language, all their stories and geography, all their stunning humanity, and none of it could save them from the mark of plunder and the gravity of our particular world. And it occurred to me then that you would not escape, that there were awful men who'd laid plans for you, and I could not stop them. Prince Jones was the superlative of all my fears. And if he, good Christian, scion of a striving class, patron saint of the twice as good, could be forever bound, who then could not? And the plunder was not just of Prince alone. Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuition for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth. Think of your mother, who had no father. And your grandmother, who was abandoned by her father. And your grandfather who was left behind by his father. And think of how Prince's daughter was drafted into those solemn ranks and deprived of her birthright - that vessel which was her father, which brimmed with twenty-five years of love and was the investment of her grandparents and was to be her legacy."
This excerpt is taken from the section dedicated to describing the aftermath of the horrific m*rder of one of Coates's friends from Howard at the hands of a cop:
"There were times where I imagined myself like Prince, tracked through many jurisdictions by a man in a criminal's costume. And I was horrified because I knew what I would have done with such a man confronting me, gun drawn, mere feet from my own family's home. Take care of my baby, your grandmother had said, which was to say Take care of your new family. But I now knew the limits of my caring, the limits of its powers, etched by an enemy old as Virginia. I thought of all the beautiful black people I'd seen at The Mecca, all their variation, all their hair, all their language, all their stories and geography, all their stunning humanity, and none of it could save them from the mark of plunder and the gravity of our particular world. And it occurred to me then that you would not escape, that there were awful men who'd laid plans for you, and I could not stop them. Prince Jones was the superlative of all my fears. And if he, good Christian, scion of a striving class, patron saint of the twice as good, could be forever bound, who then could not? And the plunder was not just of Prince alone. Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuition for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth. Think of your mother, who had no father. And your grandmother, who was abandoned by her father. And your grandfather who was left behind by his father. And think of how Prince's daughter was drafted into those solemn ranks and deprived of her birthright - that vessel which was her father, which brimmed with twenty-five years of love and was the investment of her grandparents and was to be her legacy."