After dominating the wardrobes of African Americans this recent year, the most popular fashion trend, currently, is “dressing for survival”. In society today, for African Americans, dressing up has become a life or death choice. This trend is not a personal choice; it is not one that has been publicized on the covers of magazines. Rather it is thousands of young African American men, using their clothing to suppress their senses of self. African American men are dressing up to deflect negative attention, as a conscious mean of survival. These men understand that as a young African American man living in America today, that they may be perceived as angry, aggressive or dangerous. As a result, these men have ceased to wear casual clothing in
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As an African American male who grew up in Baltimore and currently resides in the United States, Coates understands the danger of being a young black male in America. This book, on a fundamental level, is a warning from an African American man to his African American son. Coates is able to give a warning of what it like to mature into a member of the most suspected, arrested, incarcerated and murdered demographics in America. Although the book explains the danger of being a young black male in America in 2015, Coates uses evidence from history to explain why there is a danger. By referring to slavery, Jim Crow laws and many other ways African Americans have been discriminated against, Coates exhibits that there has always been a danger by being a young black male in America. By using his own personal childhood, Coates is able to use personal, true anecdotes to further send this message. For centuries, nations have been enslaving others as a mean of progressing their agenda. It was not until slavery in America, that enslavement was based on the appearance of a group rather than a group’s beliefs or nationality. Even though after 1865 slavery was abolished, the man-made hierarchy with African Americans at the bottom has still remained intact following through into the twenty-first
As an African American male who grew up in Baltimore and currently resides in the United States, Coates understands the danger of being a young black male in America. This book, on a fundamental level, is a warning from an African American man to his African American son. Coates is able to give a warning of what it like to mature into a member of the most suspected, arrested, incarcerated and murdered demographics in America. Although the book explains the danger of being a young black male in America in 2015, Coates uses evidence from history to explain why there is a danger. By referring to slavery, Jim Crow laws and many other ways African Americans have been discriminated against, Coates exhibits that there has always been a danger by being a young black male in America. By using his own personal childhood, Coates is able to use personal, true anecdotes to further send this message. For centuries, nations have been enslaving others as a mean of progressing their agenda. It was not until slavery in America, that enslavement was based on the appearance of a group rather than a group’s beliefs or nationality. Even though after 1865 slavery was abolished, the man-made hierarchy with African Americans at the bottom has still remained intact following through into the twenty-first