Between The World And Me Summary

Between the World and Me was a powerfully written letter to the author’s teenage son about the painful realities that come along with growing up African-American. Written by Ta-Nehisi Coates and published by Spiegel & Grau this profound account begin with a summary of American violence against black people. This summary creates his overall thesis, which is that things have not changed, that young black men are still in danger, for many of the same reasons that have always persisted. He utilizes both personal and historical angles while crafting his argument. His key point is that violence towards young black males are the key factor in the way American society has economically, socially and politically oppressed black people.
This story begins with the introduction of the idea that America, or white America specifically, believes itself to be exempt from the racial issues it has caused. It cites the many examples where non-whites have been thrown about violently in order for white Americans to gain social and cultural control over them. There are a few different reasons given for why we can be so blind to these atrocities. They all fall into the category of groupthink, where people don’t realize what they are doing is wrong, simply because everyone around them is
Through intensive research, he began to dip farther into the social and cultural contexts involved with race relations in the US. Things became a lot more interesting when the author realized that the officer that killed Prince Jones was actually black as well. This made the whole situation very confusing, he was even more surprised to find out that a lot of the people working above this officer had worked very hard to cover up the crime. As if the officer being black wasn’t surprising enough, many of these higher ups were also black, a mystifying idea that the author would later try to