Between The World And Me Racism

Racism is a systematic idea that many still believe is harmless because it serves their own purpose. It was created to keep power held for the white people and make distinctions between races to highlight the white people at the top of the social ladder. It holds people in different standards than others simply because of the color of their skin or culture. Coates breaks this barrier by writing Between the World and Me and acknowledges that race stems from racism. He writes this memoir to his son about how to live in a society that is driven through racism. The fear of police brutality, discrimination, and wrongful accusations are all created from racism. For years, black people have been enslaved in order to make America great for the whites.

Many view this as the differences between the merging cultures in the United States. Coates views race as a way that the white people justify their superiority; he believes that racism formed the concept of race. From past experience, society knows that they have used race to justify the torturing of black slaves. "Racism—the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them—inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men." (pg 7) This allusion in which Coates is referring to places where people have been victimized based on their race, portrays that the average white man's belief in what racism is strongly narrow-minded. This form of thinking occurs because of the countless years we have lived in a country that was built on segregation and discrimination. Coates compares the events such as 'Trail of Tears' to events that humans have no control over such as an earthquake. This illuminates that Coates sees racism as something they have no control over, that racism occurs

This is the dream that everyone strives to be living in. However, not many realize that this Dream was built upon “the long war against the black body.” (pg 98) The very idea of the Dream occurs because of racism. Some black people are oblivious to this and try to act white, or rather they are forced to be different to prevent from getting beaten whether it's from the racism or the police themselves. They feared that they would be oppressed for being different. Coates writes that the dream, "is perfect houses with nice lawns.… The Dream smells like peppermint but tastes like strawberry shortcake. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket." (pg 11) He too wanted to be like many of the black people today, to be blind to the horrendous acts of racism. Regardless of what he desired, he opens his eyes to the deceitfulness of the concept of unity of our country. No matter how much he desired a 'normal, white life' he couldn't because "the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies.” (pg 11) This metaphor represents the slave labor that enabled America to be what it is today. The slaves were suffering for the privileges white Americans have today. Essentially, the U.S. would not be created without the history of the oppression of black people. They are still