Between The World And Me

Yesterday I finished listening to Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.  Prior to that, I listened to The Citizen.  The Bluest Eye was, as you might expect, a heart-breaker. As a result I can't say I enjoyed it, but I do feel it was beautifully written, and was important that I read/listened to it.

The Citizen was harder for me to follow because as the title says, it's a lyric. With it's semingly non-linear nature, I struggled to follow the narrative; who was speaking? Is this a black woman speaking or a white woman observing a black person in front of them? Or is it a black man? Meanwhile, it was read by someone who sounded white.

After I finished The Bluest Eye, I needed a break from the intensity. (How nice that I can do that - simply take a break from the stressful life of being a minority)

I logged into my OverDrive account where I borrow audio books from area libraries when they are available, and get in line to get ones which are not currently available.

I was then alerted that Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between The World and Me, which I had put on reserve, was now available. Knowing I would have limited time to listen, I downloaded it.

I am only half way through and it's accolades are warranted. The book is a letter to his son, telling him, among other things, that his body can be taken from him. I do not have the mental capacity or intelligence to properly explain the other things that stand out to me in this book, which should be a required read for every non-minority high school student in America.

Coates is reading the book himself, and one thing I've noticed (well, a lot has struck me about this narrative), is that when he reads the word "ask" he pronounces it "ax".  He says "thee-ay-ter" for theater, and "poe-lece" for police.  Born and raised in Baltimore, this is no doubt part of his accent, but what struck me, and I appreciated, was that his intelligence and education did not "re-train" his pronunciation, and as a result, it teaches me to remember that just because someone does not speak in the same manner as I do (not to say that I speak correctly, but you get my meaning, I think), does not mean they are not knowledgeable and educated.

Dark skinned people are different than I am. Before I get to know anyone, no matter their skin, they are a stranger to me, and there is a level of defense that I have up. But, with dark skinned people, when I think about Chicago or Baltimore, in truth, my first thought is, well, that's the world they know. As if they are used to it? Well, perhaps they are used to it (and by "it" I mean the violence that is so common in those cities), but that doesn't make it OK. Perhaps telling myself it is a world they are used to is a way to distance myself and be less uncomfortable with the fact that I could never wrap my brain around living a life so different than my own.

Thinking in passing that they are used to it, doesn't mean I feel it's OK, but it does, to me, translate them into "others". Not people I can relate to. There are many degrees of separation between me and them. There is a me and them.

During my drive I attempted to envision things differently. What if the predominantly white town I grew up in was full of violence? What if I lived somewhere where I couldn't wander to the park with friends at night in high school without fearing for my safety? What if I lived in a society where my parents had to teach me to be overly-polite to others for my own personal safety? That if I got pulled over in white Wakefield MA, I would likely be approached by a cop with a gun drawn. To know that, as Coates says, my body could be taken very easily, in an instant, and little would or could be done about it.

And then I have the luck to be able to snap back into my actual body and my actual life and society, and be perfectly safe driving to work in my car which probably won't break down, to the job that earns me (sort of) a living, to a city which is for the most part, a safe one, and to very simply, not need to worry about that.