From "Between the World and Me," by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Here is an early passage from a book that should be required reading for every American.  Winner of the National Book Award and replete with powerful prose, it takes the form of a letter from the author to his teenage son about the perils of being a young black man in America.  Although some passages, like the one below, can easily be misconstrued as an indictment of police, the author goes on to explain that the real culprit is not any individual or institution, but a deep-rooted racism which traces back to our birth as a nation and has never left us.  The book vividly conveys, as nothing else I have read, the cloud of fear under which the author says many black Americans constantly exist.  It seemed particularly fitting today.

I write you in your fifteenth year.  I am writing you because this was the year you saw Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes; because you know now that Renisha McBride was shot for seeking help, that John Crawford was shot down for browsing in a department store.  And you have seen men in uniform drive by and murder Tamir Rice, a twelve-year-old child whom they were oath-bound to protect.  And you have seen men in the same uniforms pummel Marlene Pinnock, someone's grandmother, on the side of a road.  And you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body.  It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction.  It does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding.  It does not matter if the destruction springs from a foolish policy.  Sell cigarettes without the proper authority and your body can be destroyed.  Resent the people trying to entrap your body and it can be destroyed.  Turn into a dark stairwell and your body can be destroyed.  The destroyers will rarely be held accountable.  Mostly they will receive pensions.  And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations.  All of this is common to black people.  And all of this is old for black people.  No one is held responsible.

Postscript:  After writing, I learned of the sniper attacks against police officers in Dallas, and thought about whether I should take down this post.  I mourn the fallen officers, just as I mourn the murdered black victims of police shootings.  Still, I concluded that, notwithstanding those despicable and criminal acts against good, brave officers who were there to protect peaceful protestors, Coates' voice needs to be heard.  He does not condemn the police, nor does he call for violent acts against them.  As I mention above, his concern is much deeper than that, and his book can give those of us who are not black a glimpse into the insidious effects of racism on innocent people.  It is my hope that, if enough of us listen to and take seriously voices like Coates', we will do a better job of protecting minorities from acts of aggression, punishing those who commit them, and preventing and punishing hateful backlashes such as we saw last night.