Nina Simone once said “slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.” These profound words were able to resonate through reading the work of Mr. Coates. Between the world and me depicted what it is like to be a black person in America through the personal accounts of Mr. Coates in the form a letter written in Bembo. In America, black people have been lured into a false sense of security, fighting for a place in society rather than to be of it; however, America does not care about the black body. In fact, black men are constantly protecting themselves, which leaves them no room to provide. We are conditioned to accept half as much while working twice as hard. After reading this text, I gathered that love is not always hard or tough, but rather soft. The black body has been used and abused by Americans for the past 200+ years. The most upsetting fact is that there is no evidence of stopping soon. Black bodies have been enslaved, beaten, and physically murdered by the country that was built upon the ideals of freedom, life, and liberty. Police officers have unjustly murdered numerous of blacks including Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, and Eric Garner with no penalty behind their actions. Such acts have become so common recently that it has almost …show more content…
Coates was able to exemplify that love can be soft. It was in the home of the girl with the dreadlocks, whom he fell in love with, that he concluded this. Her father and mother were both different races and both bisexual. In the black community hate gives identity to such people in the form of names such as faggot, dyke, and even outsider. I have witnessed this even in my own family, how quick they are to judge someone that is different from them. They are quicker to judge someone that is homosexual before they even address their flaws. I have to remind myself to not get upset because this mindset has been passed down from generation to generation, and is simply all they know