A cliff note from the Seat of my Soul

“Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was a godsend to read. Ta-Nehisi Coates borrowed the title from a poem by Richard Wright, who wrote a memoir of his life living in rural Mississippi in 1912. Titled “Black Boy,” Between the World and Me takes the form of a book-length letter from the author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, to his son, Samori. In this long letter, Coates relates his personal experiences as a black man in a country built on the oppression of black people. A facsimile in character of “Guidance Against the Odds” to my grandsons.

After living/working in almost every state east of the Mississippi River, including Mississippi, my soul stammered as I envisioned Richard Wright’s pain. In 2015 Ta-Nehisi Coates, a native son of Baltimore, the same as I added another pile for the many bridges that need to be built.

      Coates and I grew up in Baltimore, but a generation apart. When Coates sat down to write this letter, his son was fifteen years old. The age range of my grandsons. The year Eric Garner was choked to death, the year innocent twelve-year-old Tamir Rice in a drive-by shooting, the year Michael Brown’s killers went free. Coates doesn’t offer his son platitudes. Instead, he explains that this is his country and that his son will have to learn to bear the weight of this fact, just as Coates himself did. There is a standing reality that there are “African Americans – (with) Many Rivers to Cross.” by Henry Louis Gates. Using our “Instinct – The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive” and “Destiny: Step into Your Purpose,” both by Bishop T. D. Jakes, will stimulate the soul.