Consciousness in Between the World and Me Literature & Language Essay

Consciousness in Between the World and Me
Coates is one of the renowned writers on matters of social and racial equality in society. His greatest interest is highlighting such social evils as racism in society and calling on people to be aware of it and stamp it out in any way possible. Coates frames his new book as a letter that is addressed to his son. In the book, he delivers an interesting and beautiful lyrical call for consciousness amid the racial profiling that is widespread in America.
The book is torn between the tension of the particular havoc that it wrecks and the broad sweep of history regarding racial profiling against blacks in American society. Coates considers his physical safety to be endangered, just like any other black man, in America in 2015. As such, he addresses racial profiling with an equal measure of love and dread (Coates, 2015). Therefore, the situation makes raising a self-possessed child to be an assignment that needs keenness. “I am speaking to you as I always have – as the sober and serious man I have always wanted you to be, who does not apologize for his human feelings, who does not make excuses for his height, his long arms, his beautiful smile. You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.” In this case, it is evident how Coates considers the best way of being conscious of racism and how to handle it. He adds: “None of that can change the math anyway.” Such a brutal statement shows that Coates considers racial profiling to be deeply-rooted and thus almost impossible to completely stamp out.
Coates intends to show the wider readership and his son that the math is deeply ingrained, dating back to the slavery period. "Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor – it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its elemental interests," he states. "And so enslavement must be not just violence but casual wrath and random manglings, the gashin...