Category: Black Excellence

1. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a powerful book. So far, the author has pulled me in and captured me as his faithful guest–a part of his audience while he tells his tale and reveals his whole heart. It is full of pain and patience and resilience and stories from his past that I can relate to. In the book, the author has written . . . is writing a letter to his teenage son about the ways of our nation.

Based on the author’s background, his words tiptoe into my presence and slap me on my face. I love the language he uses, the imagery he creates, and his soulful way of getting his thoughts across.

Here is a summary of the book:

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. —

Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. ©Copyright 2023 Ta-Nehisi Coates

If you enjoy having your mind rattled and learning a thing or two about America’s history, I recommend this book.

2 “Univited” by Alanis Morissette is such an incredible song. The lyrics are captivating and her voice is even more so. She has a way of pulling her listeners in and shaking them gently, but releasing us into the wild as we bathe ourselves in those same lyrics for years to come. It is a timeless classic and is ten times better when she performs it live.

The above YouTube video is one of my favorite performances of the song by her. I hope you enjoy it.