☆ review & reflect ☆
12 FEB 2025
| BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME BY TA NEHISI COATES |
a reflection
This book was so beautifully and poetically written, it’s something my spirit definitely needed at this time. This piece of writing is only 150 pages long, but I feel like the lessons learned and information shared is that which will follow me for the rest of my life. In short, this memoir-esque piece of writing serves as a letter to Ta Nehisi Coates’ son, written from his father’s perspective. Coates speaks about his experience coming into agency of his body as a Black boy growing up in America and as a Black man existing in this country. He relays dozens of “coming-of-age” experiences, from growing up in Baltimore, to discovering who he is through the Mecca that is Howard University, to becoming a father in his 20s. He wrote this piece to his son after the senseless murder of Eric Garner by NYPD police officer Daniel Pantaleo in 2014. There is a specific excerpt of the book that I’d like to share with you all, as I’d like to dive into the theme of bodily agency and autonomy. Coates says:
-------> And you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction. It does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction springs from a foolish policy. Sell cigarettes without the proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Resent the people trying to entrap your body and it can be destroyed. Turn into a dark stairwell and your body can be destroyed. The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions. And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All of this is common to black people. And all of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible.
There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. It is hard to face this. But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body. <-------
Throughout the entire book Coates speaks about “the Dream.” He never explicitly names or defines the Dream, but based on the context I can conclude that he is referring to the perceived American Dream that all who live in this country knowingly or unknowingly aspire to.
The American Dream that has no other function but to destroy the bodies of the many to fill the pockets of the few. The American Dream that my own parents fled for their lives in pursuit of. The American Dream that coddles the rich but violates the poor. The American Dream that is to blame for every -ism that exists under the sun and the violence that each of them ensures.
The excerpt I pasted above is so important to me, because it highlights the sheer violence and horror that stems from this Dream in a way that forces you to look directly at the belly of the beast. In my experience of talking about racism with people of all backgrounds (but primarily white people); folks tend to speak about the ills of racism through wordy anecdotes, quantitative data, and historical analysis.
None of these things take into account the level of barbarism and violence that is elicited upon the body of the oppressed; the things that are felt and not seen. I commend Coates for making this distinction and relaying it in a way that is so honest and truthful. But I am not here to talk about racism because I feel like I have spent my entire life doing just that, not in an effort to understand it deeply myself but to communicate the nastiness of the beast to those who simply can’t or won’t listen. The truth is that the violence that is racism falls directly upon the body; it is something that is felt more than it is seen. I am lucky enough to have access to the language to be able to communicate it in the way that I do, but the truth is, it is something that all Black people can feel, regardless if we have the words to communicate it or not. So again, I am not here to talk about racism, I could go on and on, it might be better for me to make a video instead because me and that ugly three headed beast go way, way back, but I digress.
I am here to discuss the idea of bodily agency and autonomy through the lens of Coates' writing in contrast to my own experience as a queer, South Sudanese, first-generation Black woman. One of the most important things I took away from this book was Coates' insistence of his son to recognize his body as his own; a gift that was bestowed by our Creator, a gift that he must cherish, protect, and love fully in a world that seeks to destroy it every second of every day.
I have had plenty of experiences in my lifetime thus far that have made me question my bodily autonomy. Being a survivor of sexual trauma in my childhood and adulthood; I have struggled with viewing my body as something that is mine. Too often have I sought out external validation and acceptance of my body; due to this belief that it is not mine to own. I actually wrote a song a few years back where I spoke on one experience of sexual violence that happened when I was in college, when I was just 19 years old. At the end of the song I recited a poem that I wrote, I’ll paste it below:
I think about this poem often, and all these years later, I can’t read the words without mourning the broken child who wrote them. I have worked hard over the last few years of my life to reclaim my bodily autonomy, and through reading this book I have learned that this autonomy isn’t something that is just important for me or my singular life.
This bodily autonomy is the healing power that liberates. It is the Rapunzel trapped in the tower by the powers that be; who know of its unyielding power. It is the secret formula that Plankton risks his life in pursuit of. It is the golden chalice, the holy grail, the gift that God has bestowed so graciously upon her people. This bodily autonomy is where revolution is born from; the idea that I matter simply because I matter. I am simply because I am. And most importantly, I can simply because I can.
It’s an important thing that Black people across the diaspora should employ; the belief that our agency is bigger than the violence that seeks to destroy it. It is through our agency that joy and peace are born; it is through our agency that music is sung, that art is made, that generations are birthed. It is through this agency that we hear laughter and feel sunshine on our skin. This autonomy is our divine connection to our greatest spiritual advisor; and the “American Dream” knows this. The American Dream knows this and that’s why it works so hard to destroy it.
Don’t let them kill your proximity to joy.
Don’t let them kill your proximity to peace.
Don’t let them kill your agency.
Never lose sight of the importance of owning your body; our society thrives off of you giving your power away.
stay blessed
nyarok
