Blog #17 Ta-nehsi Coates
Between The World and Me

I
The author is apparently talking to his son. It seemed like he was on TV being interviewed by a lady who asked him what it meant to lose your body. He is trying to understand the American Progress, or rather the progress of the white America’s progress. He explained that America’s progress was built on violence and looting. The America’s history is common for their torture, thief and enslavement. He explains his view on racism and American history. He is a black man himself and says that they live in a “goal-oriented” era. He talks about how America believes itself exceptional. 

“Racism-the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce and destroy them- inevitably follows from this inalterable condition.” (pg.7) The author describes the world racism in his own world and adds that it is part of the American History.

“I was sad for my country, but all above all, in that moment, I was sad for you.” This sentence was said at the end of his long paragraph when the host showed picture of a eleven-year-old black boy tearfully hugging a white police officer and said that there was “hope”. It just seemed like people don’t get it and don’t understand and that people are ignorant.
(maybe I didn’t get the sentence).

II
Before his son was born, he was pulled over by the County police. He was afraid of being killed  knowing that they killed Elmer Clay Newman, Gary Hopkins, Freddie McCollum and more. He talks about the police’s aggressiveness and their way of arresting people. PG County kept killing “accidentally”. After Prince Carmen jones death, the author felt rage and confusion. He was apparently shot by a PG County Officer not in PG County. He adds that the police officer was a lier, he gave a description of a man that wasn’t his weight nor his hight. Coming back to NYC, he describes the small place him and his wife had in Brooklyn and the poverty they experienced. He is worried about his son growing up not being prepared for what could potentially come at any time. He can’t protect him from police and the violence of the world he lives in. 

“Now at night, held you and great fear, wide as all our American generations, took me. Now personally understood my father and the old mantra—”Either can beat him or the police.” understood it all—the cable wires, the extension cords, the ritual switch. Black people love their children with kind of obsession. You we have, and you come to endangered. think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made.” (pg. 82) At the end the officer was charged with nothing. The author says that his dad beats him and his grandmother gets anxious because their children’s is all they had. 



Q1: Why does the author says quote: “I was sad for my country, but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you”?

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