In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates brings up for conversation once more the danger suffered by the black body and the futility of the American Dream; only this time, this conversation is not friendly as many previous discussions. Seen as a fitting heir to James Baldwin’s thought-provoking essay, The Fire Next Time, addressed to his nephew, Mr. Coates’ essay takes the form of a letter to his son about how the American state is poised to plunder, destroy and vandalize his body.
In a period that has marked the murder of Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and many more, Mr. Coates reminds his son of how quickly his body can be extinguished without justice. He takes no prisoners as both black and white officers are blamed for the demolition of the black body. He recalls the murder of his friend whom he met at Howard University, Prince Jones and how class and educational pedigree do not exempt his son from the death sentence passed on his body from decades of injustice.
Mr. Coates raises many questions but gives few answers. He also raises age-long arguments about the right path to salvation for the black body. He pitches his tent with Malcolm X whom he sees as uncompromising, unapologetic and pragmatic. “I loved Malcolm because Malcolm never lied, unlike the schools and their façade of morality, unlike the streets and their bravado, unlike the world of the dreamers. …Malcolm was the first political pragmatist I knew, the first honest man I’d ever heard. He was unconcerned with making people who believed they were white comfortable in their belief. If he was angry he said so…He would not turn the other cheek for you.“
He throws in some spanners in the works of those who believe in the American Dream, calling it a dream for the whites alone, built on oppression, deceit, and violence against the black body: “and the Dreamers are quoting Martin Luther King and exulting nonviolence for the weak and the biggest guns for the strong.”
“America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing between the white city of democracy and the terrorists…I propose to take our country’s claim of American exceptionalism seriously… I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much”
Between the World and Me also presents a paradox of the black neighborhood. The streets are dangerous for the black body in the same way the school is dangerous to the black mind. While many may see the school as a way to escape the brutality of the streets, Mr. Coates disagrees and even calls it a faithful partner in the oppression of the black body. “ I came to see the streets and the schools as arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while the other enjoyed its implicit sanction. But fear and violence were the weaponry of both. Fail in the streets and the crews would catch you slipping and take your body. Fail in the schools and you would be suspended and sent back to those same streets, where they would take your body.”
Indeed, Mr. Coates’s approach to the issues at stake is more combative than James Baldwin’s. While Baldwin is hopeful that the world could still be made a better place, “if we- and now I mean the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks, who must, like lovers, insist on, or create, the consciousness of the others- do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world,’’ Between the World and Me does not pursue this idea one bit. Mr. Coates clearly instructs his son that the task of making the world a better place is ‘not ultimately up to you, though I know, each day, there are grown men and women who tell you otherwise.’’
On the exclusivity of Western Civilization, Mr. Coates tackles this question: Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? This was a question posed by Saul Bellow. Mr. Coates believes that the same Tolstoy can be shared by both civilizations and it is inappropriate to think that Africans should be excluded. This is similar to James Baldwin’s assertion during a debate with William F. Buckley Jr. at Cambridge University about America’s racial ambiguities. Baldwin noted that Western civilization will either be opened for all to enter or face the prospect of being demolished by those excluded.
His generalization of the American police and firefighters as forces of evil, even the first responders at the September 11 attack makes him come off as an anarchist. He states that there is no difference between the terrorists and the police who have superintended years of violence against the black body.
