En1313 - Personal Letter to Son

Hope Riek

Ms. Williams

EN1313

11/11/16

In light of the recent steep rise in police brutality and racial tension in 2014, Ta-Nehisi Coates, an author with the Atlantic, wrote a book containing a letter he wrote to his son, similar to a letter James Baldwin, a poet of the civil rights movement, wrote to his nephew. Coates writes to his son not to instill fear of what’s to come, but to encourage him and the likes of him to struggle and “attack every day of [their] brief bright [lives].” (para.45) To convey the message to his audience, he establishes intent of guidance throughout the letter with the use of memories of his father and his past experiences. He displays a stern yet concerned, paternal tone, the use of aggressive dialect, repetitive and distinct language, and historical references to maximize the importance of the issue at hand. Coates’s letter to his son is an enraged and direct address to the nations inability and refusal to prosecute officers of the law who kill innocent black men and women.                                                 This letter was written in response to the fear that is evoked in both him and most African American fathers; fear that despite all his attempts to teach his son to “walk in single file. Work quietly. Pack an extra No. 2 pencil and make no mistakes,” his son will always be hindered by his country’s desire to destroy “his body.” (para.42) Prior to writing this letter, both Coates and his son witnessed a police officer get away with the murder of Michael Brown that left his son emotionally broken. Seeing that comforting and sheltering his son will inhibit him rather than help him, he decides to tell his son what his father told him: “that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” (para.5). Coates realizes that instead of hiding or sugar-coating what is going in the nation he is going to tell his son everything that is happening. He uses his father’s quote to let him know that despite the racial systematics set against him he must find a way to govern his body. Coates repetitively uses the symbolism of “the body” and other strong dialects as an emotional appeal in this letter.                                        In his sixth paragraph Coates uses the sentence “I write to you in your fifteenth year,” to express that although he is not a legal adult his son is old enough to understand the hardship that surrounds him. He uses this sentence to acknowledge his son’s maturity level and capture his son’s attention, allowing his son to feel a sense of wisdom. Coates understands that with growth mistakes are bound to happen, mistakes that could lead to the disposal of his son. He tells his son that “you are human and you will make mistakes.” (Para. 42) Coates refers to Jackie Robinson, the first black baseball player allowed in the league as a comparison to perfection but also acknowledges that Jackie Robinson wasn’t always Jackie Robinson. He also appeals to a softer tone by complimenting his son’s vulnerability, emotions, and beauty to encourage him to not constrict his body and to be a “conscious citizen.”                 Coates refers to “the body” throughout the letter numerous of times to help convey the experience of racism and how it is America’s heritage to destroy the black body. He references the beating and abuse of the black body multiple times, by stating a quote, “Either I can beat him, or the police,” (para.11) and mentions his past experience where a white male threatened, “I could have you arrested.”(para.41) To explain to his son that this is not necessarily the individual “white man’s” fault it is their history, Coates states two phrases, “There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. This legacy aspires to the shackling of black bodies.”(para.8) And “It is not necessary that you believe that the officer who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.” (para.32) Coates references the civil war and slavery as historical evidence to describe to his son how corrupt the world they live in is, that it is in the laws, in the constitution, in history books to go against and cast down the black body.                 Within the use of slavery he expresses strong dialect and imagery of how it is America’s “job” to destroy the black body. To convey to his son that this country needed the likes of him to build this nation to what it is today he states. “It had to be blood. It had to be the thrashing of kitchen hands for the crime of churning butter at a leisurely clip. It had to be some woman “chear’d ... with thirty lashes a Saturday last and as many more a Tuesday again.” It could only be the employment of carriage whips, tongs, iron pokers, handsaws, stones, paperweights, or whatever might be handy to break the black body, the black family, the black community, the black nation.” (Para.34). He also uses this phrase to convey the strength of the black body to convince his son, that in order for there to be an up there must be a down, and because of history he is the down but he must not settle for down, that he has to fight and struggle to get to the top. Coates emphasizes the word struggle through repetition along with other words                                                                          “But still you must struggle. The Struggle is in your name, Samori—you were named for Samori Touré, who struggled against French colonizers for the right to his own black body. He died in captivity, but the profits of that struggle and others like it are ours, even when the object of our struggle, as is so often true, escapes our grasp.” (para.36) He calls for his son and other African American males to struggle, struggle to remember their past. Struggle for a better future. “Struggle over hope.” Coates drops responsibly on his son by telling him what his name means, as if he is telling his son it is his destiny to live up to his name. Coates also uses “my son” multiple times to establish a sense of intimacy and to stray away from the letter being impersonal.                                                                                         Just from reading the title its known that this letter was written for his son, which is assumed to be the original audience, however this letter is written with such openness of his history and what is happening in the world as of 2016 it is seem to have a masculine tone to it and directed towards specifically African American males. Primarily speaking through his experiences, Coates seems to focuses the violence done on the black body through a male’s perspective by teaching his son and other African American men how to survive in America as a black man. Anthropologist Dayson explains, “Coates slips into generalizing language about Black people, without spending time reflecting on impacts of the various gendered expressions of white supremacy.” However Caucasian people and African American women can assimilate a sense of how American history is affecting certain groups of people.  Through the lens of a Caucasian person, one can learn the realities of an African American in the States and the privileges they have. An anonymous author posted, “I've only experienced racism in the positive form of the benefits my skin gives me.” Through this reading a comprehension is assimilated that one shouldn’t be “colorblind” to different races but aware and understanding of the differences that surrounds them.  However the overall purpose of this letter is to magnetize the injustice that has been and still continues to leave an impact on the African American community and the United States as a whole.                                                Coates relied on his own personal experiences as his most used and reliable source, him on the news show, his childhood, his interactions with his father, even people and conflicts he’s encountered while with his son. Being his own personal experience, it allows some of his readers to relate to his situations. He also refers to an older movie that he assumes most people his age saw when they were younger, asking them to reminisce and “relive” a time of their past. He uses times in United States history where slavery was most prominent to help prove his point about racism and how it is instilled in our lives.