Between the World and Me

I've known about the author for quite a while now and have listened to his interviews and speeches, always leaving very impressed by what he had to say. When his first fiction novel The Water Dancer released recently, I decided I wanted to read his award winning prolific nonfiction works first, to truly experience his voice. And what a revelation this book is.

Falling just around 150 pages, this book in the form of letters to his son may feel small but the words it contains are profound, unapologetic, visceral, and give us a window into a world that we'll never truly understand because we have not been born Black and grown up in a country where our existence revolves around fear and survival right from our birth. As a reader with an outside perspective, this book is at times uncomfortable to read, but if one is open to listening to experiences that one has never had, then anyone reading this book will realize the inherent brutal truth behind the author's words. It is the truth of America's violent history and it's present, the truth that is the daily life of a whole community terrorized by the system that is supposed to protect its citizens, even when all of us with privilege can never fathom the toll of living like that.

The main audience for this book maybe the Black community, but I think it's far more important for everyone else to read it. We may never understand the fears of every Black parent who have to teach their sons how to survive from an unimaginably young age, but we all have the responsibility to learn about it and acknowledge our privilege and be an ally in whatever way possible. I say this as a brown woman who grew up with privilege in my own country, and while I do get terrified at a traffic stop in the US, I also understand that the so-called “model minority” myth might accord me some safety. This is a powerful book and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to read more about the inescapable systems of oppression in the country.