Between The World And Me Analysis

Throughout American history there has been many achievements and accomplishments that set America apart from the rest of the world, but what society fails to notice is the racial oppression and violence that the blacks have endured throughout history and today. In the essay, Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the poem, Between the World and Me by Richard Wright, the authors both use language to convey a message that how America’s history has been violent against blacks and how it hasn’t changed much. This is seen in the way both authors approach the ideas of how blacks have been mistreated through history and how many Americans today cover the facts of the past up. But in comparison of each other, the essay written by Coates

Another place where Coates shows a concealment of mistreatment is revealed to us by this quote: “They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black four-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white.” (Coates, 10). In this quote Coates is reporting how the Americans don’t equally represent blacks throughout history and the when a black person makes history they are put into the “category of Trivial Pursuit” and not into textbooks where everyone can learn about them. The final hardship that the black community faces, according to Coates, is the loss of innocence amongst the black youth in America. This idea of loss of innocence is laid out by Coates writing about his youth life being raised in Baltimore. “To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease.” (Coates, 5). This shows a loss of innocence because Coates is being exposed as a kid to bad influences in his life that other kids are not

This is shown to us in the way both authors approach the ideas of how blacks have been mistreated through history and how many Americans today and in the past cover the facts of the past up. But in comparison of each other, the essay written by Coates accounts for how the oppression and unjust treatment of blacks have led to a loss of innocence amongst the black youth due to exposure to bad influences as children versus in the poem where Wright is writing about how the unjust treatment and oppression has lead to a loss of faith amongst blacks. This similarity in shared ideologies across the writings of Richard Wright and Ta-Nehisi Coates goes to show how the society today should look back at history so that the oppression and racism against the black community can be thwarted from continuing on into the