Analysis Of Ta-Nehisi Coates Between The World And Me

In the book “Between the World and Me”, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes a letter to his fifteen year old son about how to live as a black person in America. He includes his life story and how he began to realize the difference between living as a person and living as a black person in a country where his life could be taken at any moment despite how he carries himself, his accomplishments, or anything of that nature. He goes into detail of the transition of his teenage years to his college years where his history professors would give him advice and life lessons, since he behaved like any other student that became aware of their situation as a black person. This ties into a theme that is clear within the work, which is how everything is nearly racially divided in America. This mentality in the country began when black people were captured and enslaved. In modern times the thought that black people should continue to be judged by their looks and seen as less of a human being is very real. Black people are seen as a threat by simply existing and are being controlled by the rules and laws that were set into place after slavery “ended.” In order to preserve white privilege and power, black and brown people have been denied the ability, more times than not, to succeed and bring
Race is a social construct based off of systematic oppression and status of power. White people only exist as white in relation to what they own in America such as political and economical power, as well as privilege. They have the ability to get a pass to not work as hard as other races as well as get less harsh punishments for their wrongdoings. Racism also causes those that fall under the category of white to believe that they are not racist, but in reality are taught to behave in that manner. They consistently have subconscious racist thoughts because of