Between the World and Me

Unless you've been living under a literary rock, you've heard of or better still even read the works of Ta-Nehisi Coates. A journalist/writer for The Atlantic, his longform essays on race relations in today's turbulent times are the perfect recipe for those trying to sift through the jingoism. His profound understanding of African-American history is a revelation for someone who didn't grow up here. Heck, I'm sure people who were even born here are aware of much of the sordid history of race and how it permeates American society to this day.

This book is a long open letter to his teenage son who reads and sees the troubling news today and gets distressed. Coates doesn't sugarcoat his words on how ‘his body' i.e. that of an African-American is not really in his control and is subject to abuse not by a racist cop but rather by institutions that've thrived on subjugation of minorities and adds that history has been replete with such injustices. Perhaps we hear about them more often now than before thanks to the tech social networks. He doesn't proffer violence as the solution but his tone is of resigned anger that has festered over years thanks to countless incidences of being unfairly profiled.

Coates talks about the other side of white privilege which any non-white person doesn't need any explaining. The norms that have been set that we constantly try to fight against are dictated by what is expected of you. I cannot imagine what it is to be a black man or a Muslim in America as much as a white person can't imagine what's it be to a brown person trying to board an airplane just to get home.

Be warned that parts of the book will make you angry. Very angry. But it also instills you in a finer understanding of the world around you and all you can hope is to make it a slightly better place. As Obama often says, we strive to make it a more perfect union. But I don't think we're there yet. Far from it, in fact. But someday.