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.

Black like Ta-Nehisi

Yesterday I received an email from the Kitsap Regional Library informing me that the book I had placed on hold and had reserved several months ago was now available for me to pick up. The last sentence of the email informed me that I had until December 26, 2015 to pick up said book. That wasn’t going to be an issue. No, sirree, come hell or high water, I was picking up that book ASAP, baby—and we are in the very soggy depths of the very intense rainy season here in this part of The Puget Sound region of western Washington State—so when I say “or high water,” I mean that literally. 

Still, I was very surprised to receive that email. You see, when I had placed this book on hold I was informed that even though the Kitsap Regional Library had three copies of this book available for community members to check out, all three copy’s had a long list of people ahead of me who had reserved the book as well. The shortest of those lists had no less than fifty patrons ahead of me. When I did the math, knowing that each patron would be allowed to keep the book for up to three weeks, I realized it could potentially be as long as 150 weeks before my “number” would come up. I realized of course that not all of those fifty patrons ahead of me on the list would necessarily keep the book for the entire three week allotment of time they were entitled to. A few of them here and there might even pass on taking their turn at the book altogether. Still, because of the immense popularity of this particular book, I allowed myself to begrudgingly surrender to the great possibility that it would be months and months, possibly around summer solstice 2016, if I was lucky, before my chance at the book would come up. But no, here it was December 17, 2015 and I for three weeks this book was going to be mine and there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I would be one of those inconsiderate patrons who was going to keep the book for every single second of those allotted three weeks. Oh yes, just what is the book in question? Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

This is not going to be a review of the book. Not exactly. I'm not finished with the book yet. I’m more than halfway through my first reading. Even if I were completely through my first reading I wouldn’t be writing a review today, not this soon. I plan on writing a review after I’ve read it at least twice, after a reading where I have made notes, checked out some of the writers mentioned who I’m unfamiliar with, etc. So yes, I do plan on writing a review of this book. Absolutely. Just not now.

And yet this book is already significantly haunting me, making me ponder all kinds of things. Stirring up various ghosts I've buried and re-buried multiple times.

When I first got the book in my hands, I had a mix of feelings. On the one hand I felt, as I was holding the book, as if I had received a very special early Christmas present from the universe. I instinctively held it in my hands for a few moments as if I were holding something of great value, a treasure of sorts. I’m sure you know this feeling. When one places something in one’s own hands one sees very little value in, we hold it very different than objects placed in those same hands that we assess as having much greater value. With the valued items, we softly caress the item. In a very real sense we make love to it. All of our attention, every single ounce of it is placed on the item as if this item is the only thing in the entire cosmos that matters at all. I was sitting in our vehicle, parked in front of the library, when I placed the book in my hands for the very first time—my partner John had gone into the library to pick up the book so he in fact placed the book in my hands that first time I caressed it. In those moments, parked in front of the library, anything, and I do mean anything could have happened on that street, perhaps even a few feet from where the the vehicle was parked, and it would have not really taken my focus completely off of the book—at least not immediately. Even if an explosion of some sort had occurred a few feet from the vehicle in those precise moments, I am certain I would have still had a delayed response. There would likely have been some gap between the explosion and my conscious registering of it and another gap between the conscious registering of it and my

reflexive acknowledgement of it.

And then I gently turned to the back cover of the book and there was that glowing, almost surreal assessment of the book by Toni Morrison and I was plunged headlong and forcefully back into the real world, like in that scene in The Matrix when Neo is first released from that incubator and gasps and experiences his first real breaths ever. I made a mental note to self, after reading that crazy, hyperbolic review, to permanently take Mother Morrison off my list of favorite writers once I got home.

But then, a little while after I had gotten home I started to read the book, I mean really read the book in the way one reads a book that is not merely reading a book but where the book is also reading you and well…maybe, just maybe, Mother Morrison might…might end up redeeming herself after all and still be able to remain on that list. It’s not at all a certainty yet. We’ll see.

I don't know I've read what I am about to say in any of the many reviews I've read about this book. Here it is. This book, it struck me very early on, is on so many different levels, about Ta-Nehisi Coates' ability to frame his story around his intense love for various black males in his life. Principally, of course, it is about his love for his own black son, Samori. However, almost right up there with that, sometimes, for moments, even eclipsing it, is his love for his murdered friend, Prince Jones. And once again, there is his love for Malcolm X (el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz). It is so completely rare in my experience to read the writing of a black man who so unabashedly is able to write and so write brilliantly and lovingly about the other black males that have positively impacted his life that he currently or has loved, that this single fact alone, even if I end up having significant problems with this book (which is doubtful) earns it a permanent place in my heart.

I find Ta-Nehisi Coates to be a very good, even spellbinding writer. I believe I am able to understand and appreciate how I imagine his mind works through having read numerous things he has written. I believe he is a very talented writer. For me, when I say that, it takes into account much more than mere writing.

When I first started reading Between the World and Me I was immediately and perhaps somewhat instinctively made reminiscent of another book I had read many years ago, by another black male journalist. That book was and is Makes Me Wanna Holler by Nathan McCall. That book introduced me to a black boy, black young man’s and grown black man’s world that I thankfully or perhaps maybe not so completely thankfully, did not exactly mirror my own experience in my growing up years in Lexington, Kentucky in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Into even a few sentences of this book now in my hands I knew I was going to have some of the same visceral experiences I had when reading McCall’s book. All three of us are indeed black men, whatever that truly means, forged out of the same stuff and matter and history in America that every black man is somehow forged out of no matter his family’s economic status, his own level of education, his sexual orientation, his personal psychological profile, whatever was there.

And also, reading Between the World and Me immediately took me to some weird, much unexpected, disturbing, and very dark places. I began to compare my own life experiences to the reported life experiences of Ta-Nehisi Coates. This is something I do with many contemporary books I read. It is something that allows me to connect with the writer in ways I might not otherwise be able to. On the most superficial levels there did not seem to be much we had in common. And yet, for some reason, in the first twenty five pages or so, I was transported to a few very specific passages I had written in my own yet to be published book, Dharmageddon. I felt an unmistakable urge to find those couple of passages and re-read them. I hadn’t looked at those passages in month now. I couldn’t even remember exactly what chapters they were in. Were they in the same chapter? No they weren't. They were in opposite ends of the book, almost book-ending the book. Here is the first passage from the manuscript for Dharmageddon Coates’ own book flipped the switch on me to re-visit:

Much of the world became aware of the #BlackLivesMatter movement/campaign after the deaths/murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO and Eric Garner in NYC, NY. In reality though, the movement had been organized more than a year earlier in the aftermath of the murder of Trayvon Martin and more specifically after the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman. This period of time is when I first became aware of the movement.

One way—just one way, mind you—I experienced the #BlackLivesMatter movement after it had gained significant momentum in this country after the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and also very strongly so in The San Francisco Bay Area and especially in Oakland, while I was still living there, several months before I finally left Oakland in early 2015, caused me some deep emotional distress and also caused me to reflect even more deeply on my already rather problematic and troublesome relationship with progressive social justice activists as a whole.

At the very beginning of this surge in interest in the movement, in fact almost immediately so, I was struck by how especially some of the black and people of color progressive activists in my own life seemed to be so completely moved by and passionate about this relatively new, exciting, and emerging cause and how they also seemed so adroitly able to effectively and convincingly preach its foundational mantras during what seemed like all of their waking hours.

I also knew without a doubt that some of these exact same people did not treat all the black people in their interpersonal lives with sometimes even a fraction of the love, care, and respect their deep involvement in this movement would have seemed to have at least slightly mandated. They did not treat such people as if they truly mattered. Sometimes they treated them very harshly and seemingly without compassion or sympathy. I knew this because I was a black man in their lives and I did not feel loved, nor cared for, nor to matter to them based on how I perceived myself as being treated and/or ignored by them. This seemingly intense hypocrisy by self-described black, white, and people of color progressive activists once again, like so many times before, really just took my breath away this time, and not at all in a good way. This was probably because this time, unlike all the other times in my life where progressive social justice activists had seemed so cruel, unfeeling, and clueless, this time, by contrast, I was also dealing with homelessness and all the infinite horrors that came with that. So my treatment by avowed though perhaps not official #BlackLivesMatter activists strongly and emotionally impacted me during a very specific episode in my life that was already deeply impactful itself in so many other ways and on so many other levels. I had black and people of color #BlackLivesMatter supporters and progressive activists in my life who responded to me in this way. I had seemingly deeply committed and passionate white allied #BlackLivesMatter supporters and progressive activists in my life who responded to me in this way as well. Still, it was the black and people of color activists whose treatment was the most impactful and devastating to me.

I found myself asking myself—what exactly does it mean when there are people—Buddhist practitioners and other committed social activist type people among them, who are out in the dangerous city streets day and night, bearing witness and making strong, pull no punches styled public statements in those streets, on social media, and on various other public venues almost every single day speaking of the importance of black lives? What does it mean when these folks are consciously making a name for themselves, consciously (or not so consciously), as strongly as one can, presenting themselves as being fervent and incredibly dedicated anti-racist/pro black people activists? And what does it mean when such folks are aware that you as one example of a living, breathing black life are desperately in need of any and all expressions of kindness and compassion possible and such a person responds by ignoring you or even finding ways to be mean spirited and thoughtless towards you or to find ways of making you the problem without ever even speaking to you directly about it all? My normal everyday response to that last admittedly pointed and very direct query would be that what it means is that such a person is simply just incredibly human—warts and all. Here however, I want to put that answer on the shelf for just a moment. I want to put it on the shelf because the rhetoric of the #BlackLivesMatter supporters and progressive activists and Buddhist practitioners I am specifically referring to here was just so completely over-the-top. Your supposed demonstrated love for all black people was so seemingly and so breathlessly all inclusive. Your rhetoric was so seemingly honorable, sincere, and endearing in its never-ending spoken and shouted and written about platitudes about just how much all black lives mattered to you.

So I want to provide an opportunity for you here, if you were or are such a person who responded to the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the ways I have described. I want you to think about what being on the other side of that equation might have felt like for someone like me. How might you respond to someone like me, who is saying to you, I witnessed your regular, nearly daily reports regarding how much black lives mattered to you. And yet I am here to tell you that as one black life living in the very same city as you, whom I know you were/are aware of, I for one did not at all feel like I mattered to you. These feelings of mine are based wholly and completely on how you treated me, perhaps even gossiped about me behind my back, refused to acknowledge my suffering, and did not seem to really extend a hand of compassion to me. Is this how you express your reported conviction that all black lives indeed mattered to you?

When confronted with my admittedly harsh and perhaps difficult to embrace though nevertheless experienced truth around your #BlackLivesMatter proclamations, maybe you’ll at first attempt to come up with some knee jerk, reactivity based excuses. Perhaps you’ll repeat some lies you’ve told yourself on many previous occasions to make yourself feel better, when you’ve felt or believed you needed to be on the defensive. Maybe you’ll become philosophical and speak about “appearances” or suddenly become dogmatic in how you define the word “matters.” Perhaps you’ll try blatant denial. That works for a lot of people a lot of the time. Maybe you’ll believe it will work for you here too. Maybe it will work for you. I don’t know. Perhaps you’ll try the well-worn tactic of trying to turn the tables by attempting to focus on me by calling me angry, judgmental, vengeful, or God knows what else, essentially using the world weary ploy of trying to make me the problem so that you don’t have to look at your own possible/probable problematic behavior and inconsistencies. Or perhaps some empathy, compassion, loving kindness, and deep humility will somehow, in some way, and in some form find a way to blossom from within your heart and you’ll employ none of those strategies, calm your mind, admit your failings, and continue on your life journey towards transformation and healing despite this minor bump in the road.

OK, now I can take my normal everyday response back off that shelf again and acknowledge that you too are simply just incredibly human—warts and all, like all the rest of us, myself included, no matter what else you may also be.

And then there was the other passage in the Dharmageddon manuscript that Between the World and Me summoned me to, called to me from some place I cannot name.

When I was in the process of re-writing Dharmageddon, this past summer, I found myself instinctively writing a new section that was/is entitled, “Who is my Tribe?” This came about because I had been writing about all the various communities I had been a part of over the course of my life and while writing this I came to the startling and surprising awareness that even though I had been a part of a large and diverse number of communities in my life, none of them, not even one, seemed to truly be my tribe. There was the black community, the progressive social justice activist community, the LGBTQI community, the Buddhist community, the Zen community, the radical faeries, the Rainbow Family, the nonspecific spiritual community, etc. One by one I reviewed my experiences with each of these communities and in my assessment none of them really felt like a true tribe to me. The first one to be eliminated was the black community. I remember being and feeling shocked, saddened, and depressed as I wrote how the black community was the first to be eliminated. Yet, the more and more I processed and analyzed and wrote this section of the book out in very much a stream of consciousness way, the more I realized this was my truth. Then, as I continued to write in a free flowing manner I ended up writing the following about the possibility of white folks somehow being my heretofore unacknowledged tribe:

I don’t remember the exact time or if there was even a specific life event that let me know unequivocally that white folks, as a whole, were not my long lost tribe. I believe this had occurred by the time I was in high school certainly, maybe slightly earlier. The fact that the only people who have consistently and ferociously argued with me, for four decades running now, about the existence of white privilege, have all been white folks, is probably, in and of itself, enough to disqualify white folks as my tribe. Augment that with the blatant racism I have experienced in this life from many various white folks, and the fact that I sometimes do in fact read the news, and white folks as my potential tribe is pretty much a wash.

And yet this one is still just a tiny bit tricky. That’s because throughout every single period of my life, without exception, no matter how depressing or tragic, there has always, always been some dependable white individual or some small group of white folks who have absolutely and without question been the most supportive people in my life and in every single category that has proven over the years to be the most meaningful ones for me—unwavering emotional support, financial generosity that very importantly comes without strings, conditions, and either direct or indirect or strongly hinted at judgements, that comes with emotional transparency, near unconditional love, protecting me from harm and danger, unquestioned friendship and loyalty, being there for me in the most tragic, merciless, depraved, self-deprecating and ungrounded episodes of my life, reliable and non-judging spiritual support, compassionate mentoring, etc.

That’s an extremely powerful list and even more powerful set of life experiences right there. I can see where this experience alone could easily give me the impression that white folks might be my tribe especially if I just focused and concentrated on this one extremely important and highly impressionable life experience. Mind you, it hasn’t always been the same individual nor the same group of white folks who were there for me throughout my entire life. However, there has always been some individual or some small group of white folks there in my corner during every single period of my life and strongly and unquestionably so.

There is no individual or group of black or brown people I can say this same thing about. None. There has not always been black folks or people of color from any ethnic grouping throughout every single period of my life that I have very deeply felt and known were truly there for me no matter what. In fact, there have been relatively few black and other people of color folks who have ever been there for me in these ways at all—there have been some, though few compared to the relative cacophony of white folks who have been there for me. You know, I don’t believe I have ever really and truly realized all or any of this until this exact moment, while composing these very words. This feels like an absolutely astonishing, stunning, somehow extremely disconcerting, unbelievable, and very overwhelming realization.

And so, much later in the day, because we will be spending much of the day with friends from church, I will return to my reading of Between the World and Me. I know it is going to be an extremely bumpy, emotional roller coaster of a ride. I'm ready. I'm emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually equipped for the ride. I think.