The
Fairfax Library Book Discussion Group will meet Thursday, May 11th at 7 p.m. in
the meeting room of the Fairfax Library to discuss our May book, Between
the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Discussion questions are below.
Here
are some links for additional background and information:
USC’s
Bedrosian Center offers an online
social justice book club. You can subscribe on iTunes, too. Scroll down the
page to find their discussion of Between the World and Me
Coming
up, we have the following books to look forward to reading:
Thurs.
June 8th Here
Comes the Sun by Nicole Dennis-Bonn
Thurs.
July 13th The
Last Painting of Sara De Vos by Dominic Smith
Thanks
for reading with us. I look forward to seeing you at the Fairfax Library.
Beth Bailey-Gates
Friends
of the Fairfax Library
DISCUSSION
QUESTIONS
Between
the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
1. Coates modeled the book’s
epistolary structure on James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time , which is also
written as a series of letters. Why do you think Coates chose the epistolary
form, rather than that of the traditional essay? Why do you thinkCoates
wrote this book in the form of a letter to his son, specifically? How does the
format affect your relationship tothe text? Do you think this format might make
some readers uncomfortable? How might black readers have a different experience
reading this text than white readers?
2. Consider the title Between
the World and Me ; it comes from a poem by Richard Wright, which is printed at
the beginning of the book. To whom do you think the “Me” in both the book title
and the poem refers? What are the “sooty details of thescene” in Wright’s poem?
How are these “sooty details” portrayed in Coates’s book?
3. How does Coates define and
describe the black body throughout the book? What does Coates mean when he
refers to the idea of losing his own body? Consider your own body, and the
influences and individuals that have control over it. How is your experience similar
to or different than the experiences Coates writes about? Why does Coates
include physical descriptions of black bodies when writing about slavery
and historical racism?
4. Coates
identifies race in the United States as a social construct that has its origins
in a history of violence and oppression. Why do you
think this conception of race is not universally accepted? Who defines race in
America? How do racial boundaries and categories benefit some people and harm
others? Does race play a role in determining
who has political power, economic privilege, and
social benefits? Have social influences such as race, power, and privilege played a role in shaping your own
personal identity?
5. Why did
Coates choose not to comfort his son when the news broke that the police officer who killed Michael Brown would
not be indicted? What was your own reaction to this verdict? How do you
think people throughout the country reacted to this decision? How did this incident spark conversations about race and police violence in
the media and in your personal life? What have you observed about the
Black Lives Matter movement on the streets of Ferguson, New York City, Baltimore, and
Charleston? How are young people resisting and organizing locally against police brutality?
6. Coates
writes about the profound fear he felt growing up in Baltimore, and the sense
he had, even then, that he was being excluded from other, more beneficial
childhood experiences and opportunities. What unspoken rules was Coates forced
to learn? How do you think these rules affected his
experiences as a child? How
does Coates’s childhood compare to your own? How do childhood experiences
affect our personal stories and identities?
7. As a young person, Coates witnessed another boy brandish a
gun. He writes, “He did not need to shoot. He had affirmed my place in the order
of things. He had let it
be known how easily I could be
selected.” Why didn’t
Coates tell anyone about this experience?
How did this incident affect Coates’s sense of
belonging in Baltimore? How did it affect his level of fear? Have you ever had an experience that reminded you of your own mortality? Did
you have control over the situation, or were you unable to prevent it?
8. Coates
writes that public schools in Baltimore were “not concerned with curiosity.
They wereconcerned with compliance” and that education was “a means of escape from death and penal warehousing.” In what ways do public schools fail the communities they are meant to serve? Why did Coates choose to focus on his education, despite not
feeling engaged or supported by his school? Is this different than your own
experience with education? Coates writes that 60% of all young black men who
drop out of high school will
eventually go to jail. Why do you think this statistic is so high?
9. Whenever
Coates got into trouble at school, his grandmother made him write about the incident.
He calls these moments “the earliest acts of interrogation, of drawing myself
into consciousness.” Recall your
own early “acts of interrogation.” How did you reflect
on your actions and your place in the world? How and why did you choose that
particular process of reflection? How can writing help you both ask and answer questions, and discover and develop your own identity? When did you first become aware of
your own racial identity and how it
affects your life?
10. Coates
writes, “Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent
exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it.” What were you taught about America’s history of
slavery and racism? How was it different than the
American history that Coates writes
about? Why are children shielded from learning about historical racism early in their education? What prevents individuals from
studying racism and histories of violent exploitation as they grow older?
11. Coates writes, “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we
have and you come
to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets
that America made.” How does Coates’s description of parental discipline within the black community compare to your own philosophy regarding behavior, discipline, and
punishment? What do you think of the practice of “violence administered in fear
and love”? How is this form of discipline influenced by black parents’ perceived
lack of control over their children, and inability to protect them?
12. What is “The Dream” that Coates describes, and who is seeking
it? Why did Coates choose to capitalize “Dream”? How is Coates’s definition
similar to or different than your own perception of the American Dream? What does Coates mean when
he writes, “I am convinced that the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today,
would rather live white than live free”? What is the relationship between “The Dream” as Coates describes it and both historical and
contemporary racism? What does Coates believe needs to happen for Dreamers to “wake up,” so to speak?
13. Coates writes,
“my only Mecca was, is, and shall
always be Howard University.” Why does he refer to Howard as the Mecca? Coates lists dozens of authors, leaders, and intellectuals who studied at Howard.
Why does he list so many names?
What role do they play in his
experiences as a student and as a writer? What does he learn about the diversity
of black people from the students
on the Howard campus?
14. Coates tells his son that he “must be responsible for the worst actions of other black
bodies, which, somehow, will always be assigned to you.” What are the social responsibilities assigned to young black people?
Coates also tells his son “the price of error is higher for you than it is for your
countrymen, and so that America might justify itself, the story of a black body’s destruction must always begin with his or her error, real or imagined.” How do you see error and blame represented in the narratives of black people who
are killed by police? How is this similar to or different than the portrayals
of police officers who are killed while on duty?
15. How does
Coates react to the death of Prince Jones? How is his process of grieving
different than that of his peers? What does Coates mean when he writes, “I knew
that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his
country and all the fears that have marked it from birth”? How is Coates’s experience
of learning about Prince
Jones’s death similar to his son’s
experience of learning about the death of Eric Garner? What does Coates learn
from talking to Prince Jones’s mother?
16. What happens when Coates confronts a white woman who
pushed his son in a movie
theater? What is his reaction when a white man interjects into the
confrontation and tells Coates, “I could have you arrested!”? What role does
race play in this incident? What does it demonstrate about the different types of safety and protection available to black people and white people?
17. Coates writes,
“in America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.” What
does Coates share about the varied narratives of slavery, the Civil War, and
the civil rights movement? Who shapes these narratives? In your own education, were you taught a “comfortable narrative” about race,
slavery, and the historical oppression of black people? How does this oppression continue to persist as structural and institutional
racism today? How can individuals and communities resist this type of racism?
18. Why does Coates
initially not value travel abroad? What realizations does Coates have when his wife returns from Paris? How is he affected by his own travels in Europe? How does his experience abroad shed light on his life experiences in the
US? Have you had an experience of foreign travel that
made you question or reconsider your own identity?
19. How does Coates describe black religious communities? What is his relationship with Christianity
and the black church? What are some ways in which religious communities can empower
or hinder their members? Why
does Coates challenge those religious beliefs that focus solely on hope and optimism?
20. Coates tells
his son, “I am sorry that I cannot make it okay. I am sorry that I cannot save you. But not that sorry . . . The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control.” What
is the struggle that Coates identifies? In what ways does Coates encourage his
son to be vulnerable while participating in the struggle? How does Coates encourage his son to find his own answers to his questions?
about
the guide writer
RACHAEL
HUDAK
is the Director of
the Prison Education Program at New York University. She has worked for
anti-death penalty advocate Sister Helen Prejean, has led creative arts and
meditation workshops in prisons and jails in Michigan, Illinois, and
New York, and has worked on anti-violence initiatives throughout the US.
Rachael holds a BA in English Language and Literature from the University of
Michigan
Additional
discussion questions:
21. Some critics have argued that Between the World and Me lacks adequate representation of black
women’s experiences. In her otherwise positive Los Angeles Times review, Rebecca Carroll writes:
“What is less fine is the near-complete absence of black women throughout the
book.” Do you think that the experience of women is erased in this book?
Do you think Coates had an obligation to include more stories of black women in
the text?
22. While much of the book concerns fear and
the haunting effects of violence, it also has moments where Coates explores
moments of joy and his blossoming understanding of the meaning of love. What
notions of hard-won joy and love does the book explore? How do these
episodes function in counterpoint to the book’s darker passages?
23. Do you think Between the World and Me leaves us with hope for race relations in
America? Why or why not? Do you think “hope” was what Coates was trying
to convey to readers? If not, what are you left with at the end of the
book? If so, hope in what?
24. Coates repeatedly invokes the sanctity of
the black “body” and describes the effects of racism in vivid, physical terms.
He writes: “And so enslavement must be casual wrath and random manglings, the
gashing of heads and brains blown out over the river as the body seeks to
escape…There is no uplifting way to say this. I have no praise anthems, nor old
Negro spirituals. The spirit and soul are the body and brain, which are
destructive—that is precisely why they are so precious. And the soul did not
escape. The spirit did not steal away on gospel wings.” Coates’s atheistic
assertion that the soul and mind are not separate from the physical body is in
conflict with the religious faith that has been so crucial to many African
Americans. How does this belief affect his outlook on racial progress?
