63 pages 2 hours read

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2015

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Chapter 2, Pages 74-97

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 2, Pages 74-97 Summary

Shortly after Samori is born, Coates is pulled over by Prince George’s County police, a police department in the Maryland suburbs outside DC that many in Coates’s writing circle had warned him about. PG County police have a history of killing people without due cause, the most high-profile cases of which include Elmer Clay Newman and Gary Hopkins. In September of that same year, Coates picks up The Washington Post to see that PG County police killed one of his Howard classmates, Prince Carmen Jones, a kind and promising student. The officer, who had stopped Jones in plain clothing, claimed that Jones tried to run him over with his Jeep. The officer was a “known liar,” having arrested a man on false evidence earlier that same year (79).

Coates remembers sitting at Jones’s funeral and feeling unmoved by the community’s religious cries for forgiveness of the officer. Coates is again reminded of the systematic way in which black people are killed in America, maintaining, “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” (78). According to Coates, the police reflect all of America’s fear and the inherent flaws of its criminal justice policy.

Jones’s death stokes Coates’s fear of losing his own body. Coates posits that if an educated, Christian, ambitious young man like Jones can be killed, who could not? Coates begins to understand his father’s mantra of “Either I can beat him or the police” (82). With this clarity, Coates writes, “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered” (82). Coates writes about Jones and the history of the PG County police. He questions why, if the police officer who killed Jones was black in a county led by black politicians, that justice for Jones is of no concern. Through his journalism, Coates investigates the internalized racism that views the destruction of black bodies as “incidental to the preservation of order” even within black communities (84).

Coates and the girl from Chicago move to New York City after he accepts a job there. They arrive two months before September 11, 2001. Coates recalls sitting on the roof and watching smoke billow from the Twin Towers. He reflects on how terror was brought to NYC in the form of downtown slave auctions well before Bin Laden. He finds the bloated patriotism in the wake of 9/11 ironic in light of America’s legacy of terrorizing black people.

Coates forms a community in Brooklyn composed mainly of former Howard classmates. He is struck by how different his neighborhood is compared to the monied streets of downtown or gentrifying Harlem. He observes how young white families take up entire streets and sidewalks with no regard for other passersby, noting, “The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs” (89). Coates recalls his rage when a white woman pushes his four-year-old son to prompt him to move faster. A white man comes to the woman’s defense, yelling at Coates, “I could have you arrested,” which Coates interprets as, “I could take your body” (95). Later, Coates chides himself for his anger, remembering the same advice that he gives his son: More responsibility is required of black men over their bodies, or else they are seen as a threat. Coates further clarifies, “the story of a black body’s destruction must always begin with his or her error” (96). He cites Eric Gardner’s anger and Trayvon Martin’s alleged last words, “You are gonna die tonight” (96).

Chapter 2, Pages 74-97 Analysis

Prince Carmen Jones symbolizes the reach of racialized violence in the United States. His death proves that regardless of class or aspiration, a black man can be killed without due cause in America. Jones’s death awakens Coates’s fear about raising a black son. It confirms his deep distrust of the criminal justice system by proving that prejudice is baked into it. Coates points out that while the police are always given the benefit of the doubt, “the story of a black body’s destruction must always begin with his or her error, real or imagined” (96).

Coates’s move to New York City illustrates the segregation of metropolitan cities. Coates unpacks the assumption of NYC as an example of integration and diversity by contrasting his experience living in Brooklyn versus the discomfort and racism he experiences on the Upper West Side or in the gentrifying parts of Harlem. He notes how the spatial awareness that he observes white children growing up with—such as taking up an entire street or sidewalk with their games—indicates and re-enforces their own superiority in a society already built on white supremacy. Black children, meanwhile, are told by greater society that they are less valuable due to a lack of quality education or housing, and that they are expected to be responsible for not only their own bodies but also for the actions of other black people.

This reading of social signals culminates in a white woman pushing Coates’s four-year-old son. When Coates reacts in anger, a white man responds, “I could have you arrested!” which Coates translated to mean, “I could take your body” (95). These interactions confirm the impossible requirements American society imposes upon black people and reveal how failure to meet them can result in the loss of their bodies. White people, on the other hand, have been taught that the assault and policing of black bodies is their birthright. It is this overwhelming responsibility, and the power of white entitlement, that Coates aims to impress upon his son. In Coates’s eyes, without understanding the cause and effect of racial violence and white supremacy, his son will not be able to adequately defend himself in a world not built to serve him. For this reason, he emphasizes to his son the importance of a thorough examination of history.