It’s a book written with the intention to be a letter or guide to the author’s teenaged son Samori and talk about the subject of fear & race and what it means to be black and what to do to simply survived in the contemporary United States.
Coates tries to explain it with his own experiences and his journey to search the truth about history and race in different states in his life like the hardness of the streets in Baltimore, when he was young in high school, his love of history and poetry, his time at Howard University, his travel with his son to the Civil War battlefields, his travel to France, the death of his College friend (prince Jones) and after his death the visit he made to Prince Jones mother.
Coates also explains that the relationship between violence and being black in North America, is related to the root of belief that America (as a …show more content…
Coates learned this from the same America History he read so passionately as a young men wich showed him how black people were subjected by the white men “ Through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land (acquisition); through the flaying of backs, the destruction of families, the rape of mothers, the sale of children” (Coates 8) generation after generation with the only purpose to built a White America at the expenses of the suffering of his people.
Passage #4:
“But oh, my eyes. When I was a boy, no portion of my body suffered more than my eyes" ( Coates 116).
Coates learned at a very young age the harshness of life on the streets of Baltimore and also witnesses many things; on one occasion he was involve in a situation that could jeopardize his life because of the same toughness of the streets.
That’s why Coates says that his eyes were the portion of his body that suffered more, because he witnesses a lot of violence and fear in the streets where he grew
Coates tries to explain it with his own experiences and his journey to search the truth about history and race in different states in his life like the hardness of the streets in Baltimore, when he was young in high school, his love of history and poetry, his time at Howard University, his travel with his son to the Civil War battlefields, his travel to France, the death of his College friend (prince Jones) and after his death the visit he made to Prince Jones mother.
Coates also explains that the relationship between violence and being black in North America, is related to the root of belief that America (as a …show more content…
Coates learned this from the same America History he read so passionately as a young men wich showed him how black people were subjected by the white men “ Through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land (acquisition); through the flaying of backs, the destruction of families, the rape of mothers, the sale of children” (Coates 8) generation after generation with the only purpose to built a White America at the expenses of the suffering of his people.
Passage #4:
“But oh, my eyes. When I was a boy, no portion of my body suffered more than my eyes" ( Coates 116).
Coates learned at a very young age the harshness of life on the streets of Baltimore and also witnesses many things; on one occasion he was involve in a situation that could jeopardize his life because of the same toughness of the streets.
That’s why Coates says that his eyes were the portion of his body that suffered more, because he witnesses a lot of violence and fear in the streets where he grew