Contemplating how Ta-Nehisi Coates in Between the World and Me combats racism is an intriguing exercise. Coates’s extended and thoughtful letter to his son, Samori, is an exceedingly bleak indictment of American history and culture, which the author describes as institutionally inseparable from racism. Whereas many examinations of the histories of slavery and segregation detail the advances made over the years in civil rights, Coates is pessimistic that the United States can or ever will change. Between the World and Me is not, therefore, an optimistic guide to how to achieve the goal of racial equality, which Coates states never has and never will be a part of the American culture. His book is a warning to a son on the verge of adulthood that the color of his skin will forever disadvantage him. As Coates has (now famously) advised his son regarding the nation in which he was born, “Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.” [Emphasis in original]
To the extent Coates offers a strategy or thoughts on how to combat racism, it is in his exhortations to Samori, who was named for Samori Touré, an African who died in his struggle against French colonialism, to both interrogate and struggle. Early in his letter, the father urges his son to continuously question or challenge what he is told by a white-dominated society. As Coates writes in his opening pages,
“The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, of confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from ghosts and guided me against the sheer terror of disembodiment.”
Coates views the "American Experience" through the prism of oppression. He holds in disdain the notion of an "American Dream" and derisively references white Americans throughout his book as “Dreamers.” The United States, he argues, was built on the backs of slaves and the evolution of society reflects only that which was imposed by the nation’s white masters. American history and culture, therefore, reflect only what white Dreamers dictate. Combating racism, then, requires an unceasing commitment to challenging conventional notions of the "American Dream." Again, as the father writes to the son regarding the former’s own intellectual development: “An uncertain interrogation of the stories told to us by the schools now felt essential. It felt wrong not to ask why, and then to ask it again.”
A corollary of the imperative of interrogation is Coates’ emphasis on “the struggle.” He never really defines “struggle,” but it is clear, given the cynicism with which he regards the ability and/or willingness of Dreamers to evolve, that he intends for Samori to prepare for a lifetime of agitating for fundamental change in attitudes and practices towards racism. To Coates, “the struggle” is the most important lesson he can convey to his son: “The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control.” It is no accident that Coates named his son for that late African revolutionary and martyr. Late in his letter to Samori, Coates writes:
“Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of The Mecca (Coates’ name for Howard University, the African American university in Washington, D.C. he attended) . . . But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion.”
As noted, Between the World and Me is a very pessimistic observation of U.S. history and culture. Coates holds out little hope for positive change. He believes the answer lies in a form of revolution that rejects those institutions that reflect white dominance. Interrogation and struggle form the basis of his strategy to combat racism. He knows that success requires the very conversion among Dreamers that he believes is highly unlikely, but he wants his son to be prepared to wage whatever battle circumstances allow.
In the long letter to his son that frames Coates's book, Coates deconstructs the idea of race and racism. As he writes, "race is the child of racism, not the father" (page 7). By this statement, he means that race is a construction, not a reality. The American idea of race does not reflect physiognomy or genealogy; instead it reflects what he refers to as "hierarchy" (page 7). The idea that race reflects a true underlying difference between those branded as white and those as branded as black is false. The differentiation of white and black is what he refers to as "a modern invention."
This invention and "the elevation of the belief in being white" (page 8) are the result of a history of brutality. Disparate groups were branded white in an attempt, Coates writes, to deny non-white people the ability to control their own bodies. In a country that professes to be democratic, black people were first subjected to slavery and are now subjected to police brutality. He chronicles a series of examples of police brutality for his son (who was 15 at the time Coates wrote the book), including the murder of Eric Garner and Tamir Rice. These examples show, Coates writes, that racism is still very much alive in the United States and that racism distorts people's thinking processes. He describes racism as a "visceral experience" (page 10) that results not only in flawed thinking but also in violence.
The dream of a fair, equitable America is not possible when it coexists with the myth of race and racism, the false belief that there is a difference between "races" and that racism is somehow justified. In writing to his son (Samori), Coates speaks of the way in which black bodies are constantly endangered and must live in a state of fear, as he did growing up in Baltimore. He writes of the death of his former Howard classmate, Prince Jones, at the hands of police officers. In the process, he shows how arbitrary, unjust, and illogical racism is in America, and he shows that it has a strong hold on Americans' belief systems.
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