Summary Of Between The World And Me

1. Throughout Between the World and Me there are certain myths that Coates tries to disassemble. When Coates stated, “But race is the child of racism, not the father,” he wants to disassemble the fact that race is real. Race is a tangible thing defined by hue, hair, and other clear boundaries. Coates explains how whiteness is a construct because those whom are considered white has changed so many times throughout history. Blackness, is also a construct. It was created to make sure there was a mass of people that lay the foundation for the privileged group to stand upon. That makes the notion of race even more subtle since people do not understand the origins. It is very difficult to find real ways to address it, so Coates does so through this
Throughout Between the World and Me, Coates constantly references to “the Dream.” He is referring to dreams that are warped in ignorance, generalizations, and the ideas of a good life from an Americans common dream. Coates studies at Howard University, and realizes that he created a dream of his own. One of his dreams referenced back to how all African Americans symbolized perfection. Coates looks at it as, African Americans do no wrong, and they are only wronged by others. Coates makes it clear on page 52 when he says, “It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort…terribleness.” His strong and powerful words made it clear to the world that the world contains many dreams. Dreams that try to mask one away from the very truth of humanity. Coates breaks his dream to find the reality of
Coates admired Malcom X because, in the early 1990’s, Coates listened to all of Malcom X’s speeches and just admired how Malcom X said you should preserve your body because it was just as good as everyone else’s. Malcom X exaggerated the fact that black is beautiful, and how he never lied. Malcom X was a political pragmatist and would not turn to be someone’s morality. Coates also compared Malcom X to his father’s generation, remembering crack and black fight. Referencing to go to their “own world” or to “the Mecca.” He also admired Malcom X because he was attracted to their guns that had seemed honest to him. He thought that the guns seemed to address this country, which invented the streets, and secured them with despotic police in its primary language, violence. He admired Malcolm’s fight to see that black people received fair political, social, and economic treatments from the hands of the white rulers.

4. “The Mecca” is referred to as Howard University. Coates draws a distinction between the university as an academic institution and as a lively community made up of young black people from every background, cultural orientation, and social class. Even though Coates did not graduate from Howard, the legacy of the Mecca stayed with him throughout the entire book. Coates described the sense of joy and black power that he encountered at Howard’s homecoming, and like the actual Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad and the holiest city in Islam, Howard became a source