It’s powerful to see how much can be conveyed in a little over 150 pages. In those pages is a father’s letter to his son: a letter of self-reflection, guidance, honesty, and love.
From Howard to Chicago to Paris, Coates details his experience of growing up, of reconning with what it means to have a Black body in a country fixated on “race”. He does this through personal experiences and reflections on history – all conveyed in the form a letter to his son.
One of my favorite parts of the book is the honesty with which Coates explains how he wrestles with what he believes. He confronts his own assumptions and education journey, explaining it as a sentiment with which I immediately identified. From some of his earliest experiences at Howard, he writes:
“I went into this investigation imagining history to be a unified narrative, free of debate, which once uncovered, would simply verify everything I had always suspected … The trouble came almost immediately. I did not find a coherent tradition marching lockstep but instead factions, and factions within factions … Things I believed merely a week earlier, ideas I had taken from one book, could be smashed to splinters by another.”
I found the book hard at times, and I was occasionally confronted by my own instinct to feel attacked or want to separate myself from the masses and system being discussed. However, I know there’s growth and power in those self-reflective moments. It is not for me to rebut or rebuke, but to consider the world as Coates sees it, as he is communicating it to his son, and learn from the chance to see another perspective.
In this book, we have the privilege of learning alongside his son and witnessing Coates’ own learning as he grapples with the complexities of race, of personhood, and of his place in the world.
It’s as powerful as it is poetic, and I would strongly recommend it.
2% Rating: 8.5/10
Recommend? Definitely
Re-Read? Hopefully
Time: 1:52