Between the World and Me Themes

Between the World and Me is dedicated to Coates’ son, Samori. The book is written in the second person, directly addressing Samori and referring to his family members as “your mother,” “your grandfather,” and so on. This format of an extended letter from father to son centers the theme of family and inheritance, creating the impression that the larger readership is secondary to the more immediate conversation between father and son. This framing…

Coates deals extensively with the theme of black bodies, arguing that “the question of how one should live within a black body… is the question of life.” He shows how racism operates through the control, manipulation, and exploitation of black bodies and the resulting fragility of black bodies within a racist society. Coates traces this fragility back to the commodification of black bodies during colonialism and slavery, meaning the way in which black people were…

Given that Between the World and Me is addressed to Coates’ 15-year-old son, Samori, it is unsurprising that much of the book focuses on the theme of youth, education, and growth. Rather than represent only the positive aspects of this topic, however, Coates conveys that it is an intensely charged issue, both for himself and African Americans at large. Indeed, one of the book’s major arguments is that black people are not afforded…

One of the central principles Coates lays out in Between the World and Me is that the popular view of American history is a dangerous myth that obscures the racist reality of the country’s past and present. Part of this myth is the false belief in the reality of race itself. Coates argues: “Americans believe in the reality of ‘race’ as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism… inevitably follows from this inalterable…