“Letter to my son”

1. Observations:
a. Coates refers to the Dream as being the perfect suburban life and how he wishes
that he could immerse himself in the Dream. He says that the Dream was never
an option for him or other blacks because the Dream rests on their backs. This is
a metaphor for how the modern American culture was built on top of their
sacrifice.
b. In the quote “they were the people that turned to fuel for the American machine,”
Coates brings to the forefront how white people have dehumanized the black
race. They take away the soul and the fact that they are human beings and turn
them into an element instead that are fueling their hopes and their dreams
c. Coates compares violence and fear to a smoke and fire. The comparison shows
that the violence was a reaction from their fear. The violence would either cause
them to be more cautious or would cause their death.
d. He talks about how he needed a trophy case when he was younger. He needs it
to prove that he mattered as much as the white people. He feared that authors
and “heirs of the universe” were right and that he didn’t matter.
e. In the quote, “the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in
being white,” he says that white people created the “white race” as a way to gain
power and superiority. In order to keep up that perception, they needed to say
who was “in” and who was “out” of the race and then to dominate those who
were “out” to keep up the illusion that they were better.
2. Think:
a. Coates has a realist view of the world. He sees things as they are and when bad
things happen. For example, when his son was weeping over the killers of
Michael Brown he said,”I didn’t comfort you, because I thought it would be wrong
to comfort you. I didn’t tell you it would be okay, because I have never believed it
would be okay” (4). Although for a realist, Coates has a optimistic view in the way
that he portrays America. Coates admits that “[he loves] the world, and [he loves]
it more with every inch [he discovers]” (26). He also talks about how “the
preferences of the universe itself [are]: verbs over nouns, actions over states,
struggle over hope” and he says that it is okay to struggle because it is how the
universe works and not everything turns out for the best but you can hope for
more and try to change the world so it’s a better future for your children and
grandchildren (26).
3. Why did he convert himself into his friends body instead of writing from his point of view?
Why was he okay with the beatings that kids would get from their parents out of fear?
Was it natural?