Seeing the Truth Behind the Dream in Between the World and Me


The Impact of Colonization

 No matter how many times I stress the issue of colonization as a whole, it never feels like it will equate to any of the post-colonization problems that America and the world as a whole has to deal with. The problem of colonization doesn’t affect only people of colour, it extends to any race that was sacrificed in order to help build the pedestal on top of which rests the ‘Dream’ of America. Many races “suffered under the weight of the Dream, and they were bound by all the beautiful things, all the language and mannerisms, all the food and music, all the literature and philosophy, all the common language that they fashioned like diamonds"(80).Postcolonial theory is what gives us the best view of how much culture was really lost, how much pain was inflicted and also the effects of that on the people that have to live with that today.

The Personal Cost of the Dream

Between the World and Me does mostly touch upon the effects of discrimination and the American dream on people of colour but the themes and insights can be applied to many different races all over the world. Coates even gives an example when he and his wife travel to France for a vacation and figures out that Haitians are the ones that are discriminated against over there which meant that he had to face less. The thing that got me emotional while reading however was really the extent of the effect to which colonization has affected blacks even to today. Like what was touched upon before, when Coates attends Howard University, he proceeds to call it his Mecca as a sort of biblical allusion to him reaching the land of his people, a land of paradise.  Again, this ties back into the fact that America is ridden with ‘Dreamers’ which is what Coates touches upon the most. Many other works will also state that people on slave trade ships were able to keep their own culture sanctum until touching upon American and Colonized soil which stripped everything cultural and made them who they are. Then they were forced to endure painful emotional and physical torture until they were willing to serve the country while being mistreated in fear of pain as another classmate’s blog had detailed. 

The Weight of the Dream

“They were bound because they suffered under the weight of the Dream, and they were bound by all the beautiful things, all the language and mannerisms, all the food and music, all the literature and philosophy, all the common language that they fashioned like diamonds under the weight of the Dream(80).” Coates in this quote speaks out to two things from what is easily seen. Those who were being colonized, after having their own culture essentially beaten out of them, were indoctrinated with their colonizers, oppressors and ideals with little to no say. Another would be that all of the things that colonizers who were chasing the American dream had realized how much profit and enjoyment they could gain from exploiting those who were viewed as beneath them and then chose to be unethical and exploit other people due to a trivial matter such as race. 

Coates touches on these topics much better than I can explain them but the ideas are still there. Oppression is the backbone of which America and its Dream are built and terribly enough the people who carried said dream on its back are now facing discrimination with little to no say in the matter.

This book has been such a great read! If you are interested, and want to read this book as well, the link is down below. Thank you so much for tuning in weekly!

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates | Goodreads
                Cited work Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Spiegel & Grau, 2015.

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