Ta-Nehisi CoatesRezensionen

I guess it goes without saying that this is a book of political opinions, and, to my ear at least, of disappointments.

From reviews and other secondary accounts, I'd gathered one of Coates's key positions here is that the American Dream is in fact a charade, allowing whites to continue abusing blacks even as they believe the reason(s) for the black nation's current situation lie entirely with the choices made / lesser capabilities of / beliefs held by those black people. After reading, this is indeed a major statement: the Dream relies upon exploitation, specifically that variant maintained by White Supremacists.

And this particular Dream relies too upon complicity: depends upon those who benefit from it, allowing it to continue. "The mettle that it takes to look away from the horror of our prison system, from police forces transformed into armies, from the long war against the black body, is not forged overnight. This is the practiced habit of jabbing out one's eyes and forgetting the work of one's hands." [98]

Coates does not frame the point as the American Dream depending in principle upon racial terror in order to work, merely that it does so in fact. A key question for me, then: Is the American Dream feasible, workable for all people, without the underpinnings of racial terror or even racial inequality? (And: is racial inequality ever pragmatic without racial terror? They are separate, to be sure, but can the one effectively exist without the other, given human nature? To replace "racial inequality" with any other basis for inequality, remains substantially the same question.)

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Rhetorically clever of Coates to address the essay to black people, and pointedly to his son. If economically successful, the book would be read by more white people than black, this would have been abundantly clear to Coates. I find myself on the margins of a conversation never addressed to me, yet just as clearly intended for me. The observations, criticisms, characterisations ... I can take offense, of course: readers always have open to them any reaction whatsoever. But a moment's reflection makes it clear, these barbs land only if I steer them toward myself. (A white body.) They were not thrown my way. It lends another layer of significance to any sufficiently self-aware reader.

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Various quotes from Baldwin reinforce my intention to read his essays. "The people who believe they are white." [42, 133]

Title borrowed from a Richard Wright poem, and Coates uses the opening lines as epigraph. These were new to me, and an ugly shock. I imagine they are familiar to many black Americans.

Originally the idea was to create a review exclusively from selected quotations: my notes identify enough to do this, still would provide a worthwhile summary of the essay.

(3.75 Stars)

I really liked this book. I read the audiobook version narrated by the author. He is a powerful voice. It is not a long book, so there is no excuse not to read this one.

Eye-opening (if you're not black) account of what an intelligent man thinks of being a black American. Hard to read if you like to think of America as a fair society. Set as a letter to the author's teenage son, the author speaks mostly from his own experience, warning his son what to expect from America as an adult - it won't be entirely bleak, but it won't be pretty.

This book is earth-moving. Ta-Nehisi Coates uses words like not many other writers I've read.

This book is a poem, a howl, a dirge, an indictment. Everyone lucky enough to be born white in America should read it.

I read this for the "Literary Fiction" part of my 2020 reading challenge. I expected to like this, I wish I had liked this, but I really didn't. I usually like historical fiction and fantasy and everything, but this was just really slow and lackluster. The second half was easier to get through than the first half, but I still felt really let down by this book.

A genuinely amazing read. It is rare for me to realize that a book will occupy my thoughts for many years to come when I still in the process of am reading it. This book has many ideas that I will be chewing over and fitting against everyday life for a very long time.

In similar fashion to the way Colton Whitehead used magical realism in The Underground Railroad to fictionalize the account of slaves who escaped the horrific conditions of slavery in antebellum America, Ta-Nehisi Coates employs that device in his telling of African-American agency in the heroic efforts of the agents of Underground Railroad, including Harriet Tubman, to save many, but also to destroy the institution itself. In a much more profound way, The Water Dancer excavates the soul of slavery through so many layers of love and horror, goodness and evil, and examines its psychological effects, the conflicts of the slavers and the enslaved. I took issue with his conclusion that white people who helped were doing it because the white enslavement of African-Americans — the “Tasked” — offended the nobility they believed they possessed: “All of these fanatics [that were part of the Underground] were white. They took slavery as a personal insult or affront, a stain upon their name. . . . Slavery humiliated them, because it offended a basic sense of goodness that they believed themselves to possess. And when their cousins perpetrated the best practice, it served to remind them how easily they might do they same. They scorned their barbaric brethren, but they were brethren all the same. So their opposition was a kind of vanity, a hatred of slavery that far outranked any live of the slave.” While I don’t pretend to understand what was in the the minds of white people who were brought up in this system, I don’t think Mr. Coates understands that either, but it is his story. It was the only moment that I felt misplaced in an otherwise brilliant book.

As a high school student I took a course on what we would now call African-American literature amd was first introduced to the classics of James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison's incomparable "Invisible Man," "Letters to a Soledad Brother," "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," and the prison letters of Martin Luther King. There's so much of this story that echoes those classics and updates them with recent experience in American cities of racial profiling, excessive violence used by police on the streets of American cities, Trayvon Martin, and so many more. Coates wears his intellectual armour in the poorest streets of West Baltimore, on the slightly less menacing streets of New York, even to the rarefied air of Paris. Today a black man on the streets of America, by himself, with his friends, or just driving down the street in his car, is not safe. Pure and simple.

Everyone should read this book.

R. L. Stephens here and the great Cornel West here are able to convey my souring on Coates better than I ever could.

I listened to Ta-Nehisi Coates read this as an unabridged audio book. I am very glad I did, and now I am buying a copy for my permanent library. It was full of references I would like to look into, and it showed me a view of history I previously did not grasp. It is a beautifully-written letter from father to son. And I am glad he shared this letter with the rest of the world. As Toni Morrison said: Everyone should read this book.

You may have already read these essays of Coates' in The Atlantic as they were posted, but they're worth a revisit, especially when paired with introductions that contextualize where Coates was in his career and the thoughts as he wrote these pieces. The title comes from a quote at the end of Reconstruction, and it's pretty apt as we've entered a period where the segment who identify primarily as White want to reassert their power.

Wow.

This book explores race as cultural mythology, as an environmental hazard, as a lifeline. I was captivated by the blending of historical analysis and memoir and Coates' intellectual rigor in dealing with emotionally charged subject matter.

I especially recommend the audiobook, read by the author.

I was very disappointed in this book after learning a lot from between the world and me by coates. This book was not organized in a way that I felt was logical. I also felt that Coates was not always certain of the points he was trying to make, and often changed his conclusions. I am not sure what improvements he would make or who really met his standards. I did feel his estimation of trump was excellent, but he is now more frightening than ever.½

Interesting, politically charged, philosophical take on Captain America. Cap is living in a post-Cap world that has not only moved on from him, but actively distrusts him. What's a super solider to do but to try to keep the dream alive against all odds?

Coates writing isn't perfect but there are some great ideas here. If you're a fan of Cap, read this series.

The constant action makes up for previous, stodgier volumes, Klaw is a fairly sympathetic villain and who doesn't like seeing Storm and T'Challa together? Coates run partly influenced the new movie, so pick this up.

I really enjoyed how this dived into the mythology within the country of Wakanda and discussed its pantheon of gods and goddesses.

Very good. Tight and tender. Not gratuitous, but more moving in its allusion, connotation, and control. A little magical realism-esque. A hopeful fantasy. But I can’t be so cynical as to begrudge. So nice to hear a tale told from a empowered hero. Still, it’s heart wrenching to contemplate.

The prose isn't always easy to read, but this story is powerful and unforgettable. Hiram was born with a gift he doesn't know how to use or control; but it has the power to change his future. He was born into servitude at Lockless, a Virginian tobacco plantation. His mother and his memory of her is long gone; all he has is his half brother, Maynard, the heir to the estate, and the plantation owner, his father. He is afforded some liberties but when you're born to the tasked; the only liberty that matters is freedom. Little does he know that his gift will soon help him on the underground. Heartbreaking and powerful!

So so gooooood!

Readers of the Atlantic will be familiar with these reprinted essays, but the added introductions and epilogue provide useful context and explanation.

I think it'll take a lot more time to process what I've just read before I can actually "review "this one - and I don't think it's a work that can be reviewed, so much as reacted to. It's been a while since I've read a book, cover-to-cover in one sitting, but that's exactly what happened with Coates' memoir. I don't know that I've ever read something so inherently raw, vulnerable and honest, not to mention exquisitely written. This memoir, written in the form of a letter to his son, details all of Coates' hopes, dreams and fears for the world his son will inherit. It incorporates his lived, embodied experiences and moments of bearing witness to impart whatever lessons he's learned or knowledge he's gathered to his only child, his son, Samori. And those revelations are so vulnerable, raw and honest, that I almost felt like an impostor in reading them. I guess that's a good place to leave this, for now.

Stop what you're doing, and go buy this memoir. Read every word. Read it again. Maybe then we can process together.