Letter To My Son Comparative Essay

For many years, black people have been enslaved, undermined and most importantly discriminated. Since 1963, when Martin Luther King gave the “I Have a Dream” speech up till Ta-Nehisi Coates’s 2015 “Letter to My Son”, bigotry is still evident. Both King and Coates speak of the horrors black people have endured, which as a result superiorizes (exalts/elevates) the white race. King believes that white people’s “destiny is tied up with [black people’s] destiny”, and that white people’s “freedom is inextricably bound to [their] freedom”(3). Coates describes this in an interesting way; he believes that the enslavement of black people has become a tradition in America, “it is heritage” (8). Therefore, without the bodies of the black people producing tobacco, cotton and being abused for a magnificent, profitable

This reassures Martin Luther King’s idea of intertwined destinies. Furthermore, King talks about the Republics writing “The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence “ where it validates that all men “would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, including black people. “It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds”.” (King, 1-2). Similarly, Coates believes that “the law does not protect [them]”(4). Therefore, the only way to deal with this condition is to survive through the struggles because they “cannot will [themselves] to an escape on their own”(Coates, 9). Coates puts it this way by telling his son: “this is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it”