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Post date: Aug 21, 2016 3:38:37 AM
This month we ventured to Zucu’s house in El Cerrito where nine of us discussed Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book Between the World and Me and the US Justice Department’s Report on the Investigation of the Ferguson Police Department. We started with Coates’s book, which is presented as an extended letter to his teenage son. Coates describes the realities that shape and often destroy the lives of African American men and details how his past experiences revealed these realities to him in ways that were often harrowing. We were moved by Coates’ recollections and found ourselves horrified by the violence and fear he experienced even as a young child. In fact, the strength of our reactions caused some of us to wonder if Coates’ remarks represent too heavy a burden to place on the shoulders of an adolescent. Still, we admired his desire to awaken his son to the truth about the society in which he lives, and we were deeply saddened that the parents of African American children have to prepare them for dangers that most of the rest of us are unlikely to ever face. Although the subject matter was disturbing at times, Coates’s style made the book an engaging read. In fact, the writing was often quite lyrical and metaphysical, and for some of us this served to temper our visceral reactions to the facts being presented and left us uncertain whether or not the book was ultimately hopeful or merely resigned.
We did not spend as much time talking about the Justice Department’s report, though we found it informative and disturbing. Particularly infuriating was Ferguson’s blatant policy of raising millions of dollars of city revenue by over-policing and over-ticketing their African American community. The report also highlighted the institutional and personal racism behind the police department’s various policies, leading our group to discuss the duty of “white” Americans to recognize and eliminate this racism and the injustices that it creates.
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