Black Lives Matter

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

I usually use this space to write about children’s books and there are a ton of them waiting for me to write about. But, I need to share about a new book, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates that I finally finished reading this week. Coates, a black man raised in Baltimore, writes a letter to his son about growing up black in America.

This book is so profoundly sad and profoundly hopeful that I recommend it to all. It gave me, as a white woman, a clearer picture of what it means to feel neglected by the schools, supposedly put in place to educate ALL children. Coates writes, “I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. The were concerned with compliance.” At the same time, he was faced with the violence of the streets of Baltimore.

He describes seeing a boy of about 12 being teased outside a convenience store. Looking frightened, the boy finally pulls back his coat to reveal a gun. The teasing stops and for that day, the boy does not use his gun. But, as a young boy himself when he witnesses this, Coates is confronted with the reality of gun violence in his own backyard.

He descries the beatings from his father over seemingly small infractions, and how both his parents reiterate, either he will be beaten by his father, or he will be beaten by the police. To keep their boy safe, they discipline heavily. While he recognizes that he was beaten out of love, Coates still tells his son he was raised in a hard family and he had to learn how to love his own son in a different way.

And Coates describes how he feels to know that police officers all around our country are getting away with killing unarmed black men. Without going into details about the Michael Brown case, he does say, “Michael Brown did not die as so many of his defenders supposed. And still the questions behind the questions are never asked. Should assaulting an officer of the state be a capital offense?”   So many of us are quick to judge, but if that were our son, our brother, our nephew would the answer be the same? While most accounts show that Brown was not innocent, did he deserve to die? Coates recounts several instances of similar injustices. His writing is more organized and more profound than mine so I hesitate to say too much here as I can only take away from what he has to say, not add to it.

My sadness comes in the aftermath of the riots in Baltimore last April, and with the knowledge that the schools and the streets of this beleaguered city have not changed much since Coates was a boy here in the 1980s. But, my hope comes from the fact that in spite of the poor schools and because of the persistence of his parents, Coates has grown into a eloquent and profound writer who can lead us to truly know one another. I am not sure if Coates’ intention in writing this letter to his son is to educate those of us lucky enough to be born white. Whether or not this is his intention, he has succeeded in helping me to see so many things more clearly.

For anyone who does not understand why “Black lives matter” is an important rallying cry that should not be diluted by, “All lives matter” I recommend that you read Between the World and Me and any of Coates’ writing you can lay your hands on. While we know intellectually that all lives do matter, we, as a nation, still do not live/act/believe that black lives do matter. Coates will help you see the truth of this by exposing his own fears for himself and for his son. No one should have to live in fear because of the color of his skin. As a nation and as a city, we can do better.