**Sam Harris is one of the five writers who eased me across the boundary from religion in general and Christian Science in particular. His early books, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation pushed him into the spotlight of those "New Atheists" eloquently exposing the deception and hazards of religious belief. I recently read his latest book, Waking Up, which deals with the nature of the self and meditation. Can't say I've crossed over into meditation territory but his ideas on consciousness intrigue me.
I also subscribe to his podcast. His latest is an interview with Joshua Oppenheimer who recently released his two films about the genocide in Indonesia in the mid 60s. The films are apparently devastatingly powerful and uniquely produced. Take a listen to this interview. Coming so close upon reading Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me it adds another splash of cold water to my white privileged life. Though I've been jailed, put on trial, successfully sued for $1 million, all for practicing my religion at the time, I am unscathed by prejudice and ignorance compared with those who have suffered in these ways.
Showing posts with label Coates. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coates. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 22, 2015
Review of "Between the World and Me"
** Just finished this remarkable book. Here's the review I posted on Amazon of Between the World and Me:
Donald Trump may be a blowhard and a buffoon but he is a saint to the American Dreamers that Ta-Nehisi Coates identifies as the institutionalized oppressors of his people. These Dreamers vote for Trump in polls but will not get to vote for him in an election because, as Al Sharpton observes, he will forever be a Lounge act and not classy enough for the Big Room. There are a few, though, who are crafty enough to hide their racism under a veneer of good-heartedness, and they will get Dreamers' election votes.
Coates maintains that the stain of racism goes so deep that it cannot be expunged. It must destroy itself as it destroys everything that it feeds on, including black bodies. This brief book, a collection of "letters" to his son is at once a searing indictment and a soaring paean to black struggle. The language is lofty while its gaze is gruesomely gritty. How many white people will read this and acknowledge their own complicity with black oppression? And how many black people immersed in the Dream will wake up? I doubt there will be many.
And that is the irony of this book. It is an indictment so vast and convincing that prosecution is hardly imaginable. Even so, it is a poem so eloquent that it can't fail to move the reader. It will take its place in the canon of great American writing.
Donald Trump may be a blowhard and a buffoon but he is a saint to the American Dreamers that Ta-Nehisi Coates identifies as the institutionalized oppressors of his people. These Dreamers vote for Trump in polls but will not get to vote for him in an election because, as Al Sharpton observes, he will forever be a Lounge act and not classy enough for the Big Room. There are a few, though, who are crafty enough to hide their racism under a veneer of good-heartedness, and they will get Dreamers' election votes.
Coates maintains that the stain of racism goes so deep that it cannot be expunged. It must destroy itself as it destroys everything that it feeds on, including black bodies. This brief book, a collection of "letters" to his son is at once a searing indictment and a soaring paean to black struggle. The language is lofty while its gaze is gruesomely gritty. How many white people will read this and acknowledge their own complicity with black oppression? And how many black people immersed in the Dream will wake up? I doubt there will be many.
And that is the irony of this book. It is an indictment so vast and convincing that prosecution is hardly imaginable. Even so, it is a poem so eloquent that it can't fail to move the reader. It will take its place in the canon of great American writing.
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