He is eager to debunk the myths that keep America comfortably distant from the bigotry underlying its own actions and deep-seated ideologies. Only in a world in which race is ontologically established could a myth then follow in which some people, designated as black, are inherently lower than those who, in order to perpetuate this myth, necessarily believe that they are white.Ĭoates’ writing is visceral, eloquent, and - most of the time - fearless. He talks about entitlement not in terms of “white privilege” but an American myth, the one responsible not only for centuries of enslavement but for the ensuing public policy that has shaped American life as a direct result of this deliberately crafted belief in the organic existence of race. The people who, in Coates’ terms, “believe that they are white” are, as a result, afforded the privilege of taking for granted that their children will be perpetually safe, that laws and law enforcers will dutifully protect them, and that a certain degree of comfort is an inalienable right. Coates describes whiteness as part of a Dream (capitalization his), one made possible through the creation of race as a concept and categorization scheme. Between the World and Meis a shaking account of the ways in which America systematically dehumanizes black people, written as a letter from Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates to his teenage son, Samori.
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