"You and I, my son, are that 'below.'" True in 1776, "it is true today."Ĭoates presents American history as a chronicle of atrocities. "A mountain is not a mountain if there is nothing below," he observes. He asserts that the subordination of blacks has been an integral feature of the good fortune that Euro-Americans have enjoyed. Coates's portrayal of the African American past, present, and future is gloomy. It conveys worry over Samori's prospects and posits a stoical parental philosophy on raising a black man in America. Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me is an open letter to his 15-year-old son, Samori. This book review appears in the Fall 2015 issue of The American Prospect magazine.
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