In an act to affirm the idea that America should claim ownership to the wrongdoing that they have committed on to African Americans for centuries, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote “A Case For Reparations”. “Reparations”, is essentially the executive decision proposed by a government to alleviate all wrongdoings by granting monetary benefits to the victims that were affected by such wrongdoings. Ta-Nehisi Coates presents the argument that until America recognizes the hundreds of years of enslavement and segregation and systematic oppression, the state of this Country will never be whole. Being a persuasive piece, Coates uses mechanism such as Bible scriptures, factual evidence/statistics, and actual testimonies to appeal to the emotional and logically …show more content…
Coates presents a series of statistical information that ultimately shares the idea that the lives of African American have not made as much progress as we would like to believe. Yes, the presences of white only signs are gone, black poverty rates have decreased, and black pregnancy rates are at a record low, but in certain aspects such as the income gap between blacks and white, its roughly the same as it was in 1970. Coates goes forth to explain the this is essentially due to that obviously fact that African Americans in the country have never had a gateway/path to wealth. Black families, regardless of the household income, are incredibly less wealthy than their white counterparts. Research done by The Pew Research Center discovered that white households are worth an estimated 20 times more than that of black households. Furthermore, only 15 percent of white families are crippled with zero or negative wealth, while more than 33 percent of black families are burdened by zero or negative wealth. And this is how systematic oppression works Coates explains; these statistics happen to roll over into other aspects of life. This lack of black wealth causes African Americans …show more content…
Coates tells the story of Clyde Ross, a child born in Mississippi to a family who onced owned 40 acres of farming land. This testimonies entails a recurring cycle of racial infused events that would simply be added into Cydle Ross’ many losses. In 1920, Jim Crow was in full effect and many black families in the south were simply looking for protection from the law. At a young age, Ross witnessed the lack of power his family and families like his actually had. As a child, Ross witnessed state authorities take advantage of the misfortunes inherited by his father and his family. Not able to read, state authorities were able to accuse and take $3,000 in back taxes from his father. Not having a way to combat the allegations, authorities seized the family's land, animals and other property and the family was reduced to sharecropping. This testimony may seem like a rarity but unfortunately it connects deeply with the personal experiences of other African Americans as well. Testimonies like this are prime examples that describe the hand African Americans are dealt. A family that was once doing relatively well eventually being exposed to an inevitable defeat that they couldn't reverse. But Coates uses this testimony to share the concept that a
As Coates departs from Dr. Jones house he thought over the loss of his dear friend. He thinks of the protesters and how perhaps their bodies was abused because they knew that it was not theirs, to begin with. Coates informs his son that it is unlikely that the dreamers will never come to their consciousness. It is clear that racial justice and the dream does not seem to be going away anytime soon, that the black will suffer from inequality and injustice for a very long time. Despite, our society having a former black American president, the media focusing on the protest against police killings Coates sees no prospect of much change.
In 2015, The Atlantic Magazine published a article written by racial activist, Ta-Nehisi Coates who presented, “Letter To Son, to address black men about social injustice in America, and how the opportunities differ based on race. His goal was to make an emotional appeal to black men to get them to understand that they aren’t the privileged ones, and he also wanted to make the privileged individuals feel ashamed of how they mistreat and make the society look down on the minority of black men. In the article, Coates states his experiences and emphasizes the mistreatment of blacks and he refers back to slave to derive a ample amount of anger out of blacks. Within the text, Coates uses a repetition of words to explain that in society, black individuals are usually viewed as lower class which means they aren’t equal with the majority.
We as black people should be even with white people if racism and lynching are over. However, it is clear that we are not. From writing this paper, I was hoping to finally get the answers I desired. I thought at first I should read a book that was just recently written and may have some insight on what is going on in this century so as a result I choose the book, “When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor” by, William Julies. He made an amazing effort to address why Black people are stuck in poverty while white people are able to advance every day.
African Americans throughout most of their history have lived under the power of the crime-justice system according to Coates and not it’s authority. “Nisbet, distinguishes between “power” and “authority” … authority… is a matter of relationships, allegiances, and association… Power…is “external” and “based” upon force.” Although one can imply as to why he makes the argument, he does not provide any evidence or reasoning to back up his claim. One can imply from Coates saying “Power exist where allegiances have decayed or never existed at all.
There is countless evidence confirming the oppression of African Americans, beginning with Atlantic Slave Trade continuing to present times. In “Growing Up in Slavery”, former slaves such as Frederick Douglass, Thomas Jones, and Harriet Jacobs share their personal encounters during the most extreme period of oppression of African Americans: slavery. The narratives of Douglass and Jones, along with many others, that are combined in “Growing Up in Slavery”, which is edited by Yuval Taylor, accurately portrays the injustices that African Americans faced during this period of drastic racism in America. Yuval Taylor, an author and editor, wrote and edited multiple books on the topic of slavery. According to Encyclopedia.com, Taylor supports “Left
On top of this, he argues that the white middle class are unrelenting with their methods of depriving black advancement in American society. Knowledge of this incites many blacks to occupy dead-end jobs, or to settle for mediocrity in the face of adversity. A large number of black males in America find themselves forced to take jobs that offer no security, or socioeconomic growth. He also contends that many blacks are not very literate and therefore left behind in cultural revolutions like the information age. For twelve months between 1962 and 1963, Liebow and a group of researchers studied the behavior of a group of young black men who lived near and frequently hung around a street corner in a poor black neighborhood in downtown Washington, D.C. Liebow’s participant observation revealed the numerous obstacles facing black men on a day-to-day basis, including the structural and individual levels of racial discrimination propagated by whites in society.
Many people forget that African Americans in this country have been enslaved for longer than they have been free. Coates reminds his son to not forget their important history and that they will continuously struggle for freedom over their own bodies. They must learn to live within a black body. These struggles can be seen in the racial profiling and brutality among police officers in cases such as Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and countless of others. He goes on to describe his childhood and how fear was the root of black existence.
He talks about how those who believe they are white are essentially doing the “theft” from the bodies of the black. By using example from the American history and some recent disputes between the police and the black, he seems to express hope, but then he realized there’s real hope. The law enforcement and black Americans are seen by Coates as mistrust, sadness, and hopelessness because he knows it’s not all right but he has t
Throughout Stephen Steinberg’s book the Ethnic Myth, multiple examples of how different ethnicities achieved economic ability and how others did not is discussed. He analysis a variety of different immigrant groups and how more than their cultural values played into whether or not they were successful in America. The following information in this paper will provide an example using black Americans as part of the “culture-of-poverty”. “The wronged are always wrong…” (New Republic, June 24, 1916) is the opening statement to chapter four and is associated with why the Negro is blamed for their own misfortune.
When he appears to the reader's intellect he says “the fact of history is that black people have not-probably no people have ever- liberated themselves strictly through their own efforts”. This quote appeals to the readers because Coates indicates that the history of black people in America is that we never been free in this country by our own personal actions. Coates further appeals to the reader's intellect by saying “history is not solely in our hands. And still, you are called to struggle, not because it assures you to victory but because it assures you an honorable and sane life”. In this quote, Coates explains that the history of being black in America is a struggle but it is a struggle worth black people being honorable of when we can overcome the struggle.
As African Americans still suffer in the United States, Rogers strengthens his problem with Coates’s writing, if everybody becomes complacent with racism, change will not happen; the only way is by addressing
The Beautiful Struggle, written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, is a memoir that heavily reflects upon the personal experiences of a young boy that was growing up in West Baltimore. The author, Coates himself, uses his own personal experiences from his life to show the hardships that he had to endure through and preserve on in order to acquire social progress despite the ample number of historical obstacles that were present in his early life. The constant struggle to progress is social standing and striving to gain his parent’s approval and acceptance is the general theme that seems to come up throughout the memoir. In regard to impending social progress, Coates had to live through environmental and social racism along with familial behavioral changes
He displays the sad moments in Ross’s childhood. The loss of his red horse, his father’s land being cheated from him, and the lack of money to buy his suit for the church program. Coates, also explains how Ross was bought “on contract” like many black individuals or families, the reason they were unable to receive a loan is because of racial propaganda. Coates states, “the men who peddled contracts in North Lawndale would sell homes at inflated prices and then evict families who could not pay [. . . ]
The African – American 's Assimilation into White America America is often considered the land of opportunities, a place where people can have a fresh start, a clean slate. America is a land that is made up of immigrants. Over the centuries America has been a place where people dream to live in, however the American dream wasn 't as perfect as believed; there were issues of race inferiority, slavery and social inequality amongst other problems. When a person arrives into a new society he has a difficult task ahead of him- to assimilate into that new society- which includes the economical, cultural, political and social aspects. In the following paper I will discuss how the African American, who came as slaves to America, has fought over the centuries to achieve equality in a white society that discriminated them.
The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates is an article issue in June 2014. The article is about discrimination, segregation, and racism toward black Americans. Two and a half centuries ago American success was built on slavery. And in present day African American are being discriminated for the color of their skin that even now the wound that black Americans face in their daily life has never been healed or fully atoned for. In this article Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the struggle African American went through and all the hard time they face in their daily