BOOK REVIEW: Between The World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me, as many likely already know by now, takes the epistolary form—specifically, that of a series of letters from Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son regarding what the elder Coates believes his son needs to know as a black, male, teenager who will hopefully make it to being a black, male, adult without being too sufficiently wounded emotionally, psychologically, socially, nor culturally, in the process.

I read this book through the many inner and outer understandings and experiences of both myself and the world into which many generations of my ancestors lived; into which I was born, have lived, and continue to live. I read it through multiple and varied intelligences and perspectives. I read it through the eyes and heart of the fifty-five year old black man that I am—a man who can deeply identify with the voices of pain, angst, and grief through which Ta-Nehisi Coates principally speaks with throughout the book. I read it through the eyes and heart of the spiritual teacher that I also am—a teacher who teaches the deep, and I believe fundamental and necessary importance of understanding ones experience of this world through taking calculated ownership over ones very life—always and relentlessly looking within to understand the deepest essences of ones existence through that said life. I read it through the eyes and heart of being both a contemplative and a sacred activist who cogently understands injustice, greed, hatred, corruption, violence, sexual exploitation, and all manner of global depravity, and yet also as one who understands the often deeply mysterious powers of love, forgiveness, and redemption, etc.

For me, in general, the narrative of the book teeters largely between bleakness and hopelessness with Coates’ recounting of his time at Howard University (The Mecca) being among the rare and also most prominent respites he takes from this.

However, before I am accused of being haplessly addicted to hope or of not understanding the limitations of being eternally, blissfully hopeful, I want to quickly acknowledge that I have been a student of the teachings of Buddhist master, The Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, for more than two and a half decades now. Among the voluminous teachings that have been birthed into the world by this prolific writer and well-respected Buddhist monk are his teachings around the concept he simply refers to as, “hope as an obstacle.”

And so both Thich Nhat Hanh and I as well, are incredibly aware of the fact that for many of us hope can very easily become that which erroneously and often foolishly separates us from the inconvenient and difficult brutality of not only what has occurred in the past, it can also blind us to what may be happening in the world around us right now, this very moment, keeping us from being truly intimate with the present moment, if that present moment is providing us with experiences we don’t like or that we find uncomfortable or deeply distressing. I also understand that all of that precious hope out there may be twisted into something that provides us with an excuse for escaping into a believed “hopeful” future and simultaneously into a place that is not even real, because the future never is, due to the fact that we cannot control what horrible, twisted, or “unfair” horrors our hope-filled and dreamlike future existence may naturally and effortlessly morph itself into.

Between the World and Me gives us a lot of truths to ponder—real, visceral, sometimes agonizing, sometimes very difficult to read, and quite often very inconvenient yet nonetheless provable truths. It does not however, always give us the whole truth and nothing but the truth in many of those same instances.

One somewhat annoying and standout example of this for me is the Malcolm X Ta-Nehisi Coates presents us with. Coates references and praises Malcolm X several times in the book. At one point he declares his love for Malcolm X which is presented very much like the expressions of love a devoted mentee might have for a beloved mentor. It is also not unlike some presentations of the love a student has for his or her beloved guru or spiritual guide, in various Eastern traditions. Coates’ complete disappearance however, of Malcolm X’s involvement with the Nation of Islam, the impact on Malcolm X of both the real, flawed human as well as the projected divine personage of Elijah Muhammad and his teachings, the importance of Brother Malcolm’s trip to Mecca late in his life, and most importantly, how each of these formed the foundation of his initial and subsequent political, religious, and cultural rebirths—was a little much for me to simply, blindly accept.

If one were to read Between the World and Me and have no prior knowledge of Malcolm X, one would walk away from the reading having no idea that Malcolm X was even a Muslim, much less a devoted disciple of Elijah Muhammad for an important portion of his life. Ta-Nehisi Coates seems to have remade Malcolm X in the image of Ta-Nehisi Coates, which is to say he seems to have given us Malcolm X the staunch and essentialist atheist. Here is a quote that seems to reflect this, that particularly struck me, “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 dreamers. I loved him because he made it plain, never mystical or esoteric, because his science was not rooted in the actions of spooks and mystery gods but in the work of the physical world.” Huh?

Coates’ deep and telling truths though not of the whole truth and nothing but the truth appeared to be something of a theme of the book, for me. Here is another quote from Coates that comes near the end of a prolonged narrative approximately twenty pages from the end of the book. The narrative consists of two and a half pages in which he recounts the partial stories of and circumstances around several very familiar names, some less unfamiliar, all black men murdered at the hands of law enforcement officers in the USA: “As slaves we were this country’s first windfall, the down payment on its freedom. After the ruin and liberation of the Civil War came Redemption for the unrepentant South and Reunion, and our bodies became this country’s second mortgage.” When I initially read that I had the exact same reaction I just had as I typed those words, which is to say, I wonder what many of this country’s First Nations people, whose stolen land, broken treaties, and attempted ethnic cleansing this country is at least partially built upon, might have to say about that. In some ways it might seem nit picking to mention something like this. However, there are numerous moments like this in the book. At some point, for me, they collectively began to add up in ways I found negatively impacted my enjoyment of the book and more importantly, my trusting of Coates and his motives for some of what he says.

Here, in this next quote, Coates is describing how no one in America would be considered racist if we left it to the racists themselves or the defenders of racists, to define that word: “In 1957, the white residents of Levittown, Pennsylvania, argued for their right to keep their town segregated. As moral, religious and law-abiding citizens,” the group wrote, “we feel that we are unprejudiced and undiscriminating in our wish to keep our community a closed community.” This was an attempt to commit a shameful act while escaping all sanction, and I raise it to show you that there was no golden era when evildoers did their business and loudly proclaimed it as such.” Truth, truth, truth, truth, truth. What he fails to tell us however, is that social science research tells us very clearly that virtually no one, regardless of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, place of residence, or virtually anything else, wants to believe that any dastardly thing we/they do, is evil. We all have some way, some form of twisting all our dastardly deeds in some fashion as to somehow justify them. This is not a black nor white trait. All the current evidence points to this being a human trait. This is the whole truth here or at least it’s more of the truth than Coates gives us. To his credit Coates immediately follows that above quote up with a quote from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn—a quote that very strongly agrees with what social science tells us about this topic—that doing evil and pretending one is in reality doing something good or justifiable is a human trait, a human flaw. However, Coates then immediately follows that Solzhenitsyn quote up with retreating back towards presenting this as a uniquely white trait. He just can’t get out of his own way, it seems. It’s as if he wouldn’t know who he was if he allowed himself to just get out of his own way.

I noted more than a half dozen other examples of Coates telling us what I considered to be clear, poignant truths, yet him also simultaneously not telling us the wider, broader, more fully contextualized, nuanced, or plain old whole truth. I noted all of them in the copious notes I took while reading the book for the second time. I don’t feel the need to list all of them here. Doing such would nearly become the entire book review if I did so. As I’ve said, collectively, they began to add up for me, negatively impacting my trusting of Coates’ and his motives.

Here is my slight tweaking of a well-known Shakespearean quote from Hamlet that for me, more or less summarizes my experience of Coates’ tendency of telling half-truths throughout the body of the book: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Ta-Nehisi Coates, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Otherwise, beyond what I have stated so far, I mostly enjoyed the book, see the book as having merit, and I will continue to view Ta-Nehisi Coates as a skillful, insightful, and necessary voice in today’s world. I believe that voice is an important one and I hope he has more things to say and easily accessible formats in which to say them in. I still do not agree with Toni Morrison’s much commented on praise for this book complete with its, to me, hyperbolic allusions to James Baldwin and such. I essentially agree with Cornell West and what he has publicly stated about this. She, of course, is entitled to her opinion. She’s also an alum of Howard University, the same school Coates attended though did not graduate from. And she is also mentioned and acknowledged, very briefly, at least twice in Between the World and Me. So there’s also that.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is now quite wealthy I imagine, propelled into this economic state of existence through royalty checks from this very book as well as the monetary perks from several of the awards he has more often than not, in my opinion, rightfully deserved—the 2015 nonfiction American Book Award being an exception to that, in my view. He is also several months into a yearlong residency in France. I am sincerely happy for him regarding all of this. However, I cannot help but wonder whether or not these rather significant developments in his life and perhaps others along the same lines that I do not know of, have impacted, even a little bit, that rarefied space in any significant way, that exists, between the world and Ta-Nehisi Coates.

NOTE: When applying amazon.com’s starred system, I would assign this book 3 out of 5 stars.

LETTER FROM A FREEDMAN TO HIS OLD MASTER

In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdan Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdan — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of the letter seen below (a letter which, according to newspapers at the time, he dictated).

Rather than quote the numerous highlights in this letter, I'll simply leave you to enjoy it. Do make sure you read to the end.

(Source: The Freedmen's Book; Image: A group of escaped slaves in Virginia in 1862, courtesy of the Library of Congress.)


This letter is generally considered to be authentic.


Courtesy of Letters of Note.


Dayton, Ohio, 

August 7, 1865

To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee

Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin's to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, "Them colored people were slaves" down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost-Marshal-General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me, and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor's visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams's Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past, we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night; but in Tennessee there was never any pay-day for the negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve—and die, if it come to that—than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

From your old servant,

Jourdon Anderson.
_____________________________________________________________________
People have questioned the authenticity of the letter. There seems to be no absolute way to 100% verify its authenticity at this point especially without the letter reportedly sent to Jourdan Anderson. The leter did appear in several newspapers of the day. That lends some degree of credibility though that is not absolute.

Additionally...

Apparently, this letter is from a real book published in 1865 by an abolitionist named Lydia Maria Child. Apparently, the letter was dictated to a literate person by a recently freed slave. The letter could be a complete fabrication on her part, but that seems unlikely given that she names the slave master in question and gives his location. And she apparently also helped Harriet Jacobs with her own popular slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Child's work, including the book in which this letter appears, is discussed in the documentary Over the River. 

Lydia Maria Child (February 11, 1802 – October 20, 1880) was an American abolitionist, women's rights activist, opponent of American expansionism, Indian rights activist, novelist, and journalist and Unitarian.

Her journals, fiction and domestic manuals reached wide audiences from the 1820s through the 1850s. She at times shocked her audience, as she tried to take on issues of both male dominance and white supremacy in some of her stories.