Discussion questions Part 1

Pages 1-50

  1. Coates modeled the book’s epistolary structure (written in letter format) on James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time,which is also written as a series of letters.
  2. Why do you think Coates chose the epistolary form,rather than that of the traditional essay?
  3. Why do you think Coates wrote this book in the formof a letter to his son, specifically?
  4. How does the format affect your relationship to the text?
  5. Doyou think this format might make some readers uncomfortable? Why might it make some readers uncomfortable?
  1. Consider the titleBetween the World and Me; it comes from a poem by Richard Wright, which is printed at thebeginning of the book.
  2. To whom do you think the “Me” in both the book title and the poemrefers? What are the “sooty details of the scene” in Wright’s poem?
  3. How are these “sootydetails” portrayed in Coates’s book?
  1. Coates uses a metaphor of a physical body often in our text.
  2. How does Coates define and describe the black body throughout the book?
  3. What doesCoates mean when he refers to the idea of losing his own body?
  4. Consider your own body, andthe influences and individuals that have control over it. How are your experiences similar ordifferent than the experiences Coates writes about?
  5. Why does Coates include physicaldescriptions 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 historyof violence and oppression.

  1. Why do you think this conception of race is not universallyaccepted?
  2. Who defines race in America?
  3. How do racial boundaries and categories benefit somepeople and harm others?
  4. Does race play a role in determining who has political power,economic privilege, and social benefits?
  5. Have social influences such as race, power, andprivilege played a role in shaping your own personal identity?
  1. In BTWAM we often read about current events.
  2. Why did Coates choose not to comfort his son when the news broke that the police officerwho killed Eric Garner would not be indicted?
  3. Assuming you had one at all, what was your own reaction to this verdict?
  4. Howdo you think people throughout the country reacted to this decision?
  5. How did this incidentspark conversations about race and police violence in the media and in your personal life?
  6. What are your personal observations about the Black Lives Matter movement?
  7. How are young people resisting and organizing locallyagainst police brutality?
  1. 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 andopportunities.
  2. What unspoken rules was Coates forced to learn?
  3. How do you think these rulesaffected his experiences as a child?
  4. How does Coates’s childhood compare to your own?
  5. Howdo childhood experiences affect our personal stories and identities?
  1. As a young person, Coates witnessed another boy brandish a gun. He writes, “He did notneed to shoot. He had affirmed my place in the order of things. He had let it be known howeasily I could be selected.”
  2. Why didn’t Coates tell anyone about this experience?
  3. How did thisincident affect Coates’s sense of belonging in Baltimore?
  4. How did it affect his level of fear?
  5. Have you ever had an experience that reminded you of your own mortality?
  6. Did you havecontrol over the situation, or were you unable to prevent it?
  1. 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 penalwarehousing.”
  2. In what ways do public schools fail the communities they are meant to serve?
  3. Why did Coates choose to focus on his education, despite not feeling engaged or supported byhis school?
  4. Is this different than your own experience with education?
  5. Coates writes that 60%of all young black men who drop out of high school will eventually go to jail.
  6. Why do you thinkthis statistic is so high?
  1. Whenever Coates got into trouble at school, his grandmother made him write about theincident. He calls these moments “the earliest acts of interrogation, of drawing myself intoconsciousness.” Recall your own early “acts of interrogation.”
  1. How did you reflect on youractions and your place in the world?
  2. How and why did you choose that particular process ofreflection?
  3. How can writing help you both ask and answer questions, and discover and developyour own identity?
  4. When did you first become aware of your own racial identity and how itaffects your life? If you haven’t really ever considered it, write about that.
  1. Coates writes, “Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whoseelevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, Ihave yet to discover it.”
  1. What were you taught about America’s history of slavery and racism?
  2. How was it different than the American history that Coates writes about?
  3. Why are childrenshielded from learning about historical racism early in their education?
  4. What preventsindividuals from studying racism and histories of violent exploitation as they grow older?
  1. Coates writes, “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all wehave and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeingyou killed by the streets that America made.”
  1. How does Coates’s description of parentaldiscipline within the black community compare to your own philosophy regarding behavior,discipline, and punishment?
  2. What do you think of the practice of “violence administered in fearand love”?
  3. How is this form of discipline influenced by black parents’ perceived lack of controlover their children, and inability to protect them?
  1. BTWAM often focuses on the idea of “The Dream”
  1. What is “The Dream” that Coates describes, and who is seeking it? Why did Coates chooseto capitalize “Dream”?
  2. How is Coates’s definition similar to or different than your ownperception of the American Dream?
  3. What does Coates mean when he writes, “I am convincedthat the Dreamers, at least the Dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free”?
  4. What is the relationship between “The Dream” as Coates describes it and both historical andcontemporary racism?
  1. Coates writes, “My only Mecca was, is, and shall always be Howard University.”
  1. Why doeshe refer to Howard as the Mecca?
  2. Coates lists dozens of authors, leaders, and intellectuals whostudied at Howard. Why does he list so many names?
  3. What role do they play in his experiencesas a student and as a writer?
  4. What does he learn about the diversity of black people from thestudents on the Howard campus?