Ta-nehisi Coates is my hero. After reading him on The Atlantic and seeing him on Charlie Rose, I took the plunge and read his book Between the World And Me. The book knocked me back. It is a detailed book of what it is like to be poor and black in Baltimore. It is a book that is written in the first person as a letter to Ta-Nehisi’s son. He covers the mentality of being urban poor so perfectly. While I am not a black person and can never be a black person, I am a person who grew up with poverty and ghetto mentality around me. The portions of the book that handle the feeling of being in a downtrodden part of a city, the feeling that you have no hope resonated with me, was moving. I remember getting close to finishing the book on a flight and crying.
The struggle for self-worth is real. That is the real damage of poverty and underprivileged. You can’t see past tomorrow. You can’t see a way out. Or worse yet, you don’t care to get out. You don’t care to do better… the hopelessness is deep and powerful. I am lucky to have an AMAZING family. I am lucky to be PRIVILEGED, I am lucky to have had people show me the way out. But what if you are none of those things? If you are just a poor kid, living in public housing, living with a single grandparent? Well, you are fucked my friend.
Anyway, I can’t recommend Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World And Me enough. Stop what you are doing and read it now.
Also.. read his latest post:
Its a post about Trump being the first president with no ideology except white supremacy. Great stuff…
One reply on “I am in love with a Black Man: Ta-Nehisi Coates”
good recommendation