# Between the World and Me  ## Metadata - Author: [[Ta-Nehisi Coates]] - Full Title: Between the World and Me - Category: #books ## Highlights - why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. ([Location 53](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=53)) - Americans deify democracy ([Location 56](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=56)) - race is the child of racism, not the father. ([Location 68](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=68)) - washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, ([Location 76](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=76)) - Eric Garner choked to death for selling cigarettes; ([Location 88](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=88)) - Renisha McBride was shot for seeking help, ([Location 89](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=89)) - John Crawford was shot down for browsing in a department store. ([Location 89](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=89)) - these destroyers ([Location 98](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=98)) - racism is a visceral experience, ([Location 100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=100)) - my country ([Location 111](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=111)) - the killers of Michael Brown would go free. ([Location 114](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=114)) - how one should live within a black body, within a country lost in the Dream, is the question of my life, ([Location 121](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=121)) - was afraid long before you, and in this I was unoriginal. ([Location 134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=134)) - the only people ([Location 134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=134)) - I knew were black, and all of them were powerfully, adamantly, dangerously afraid. ([Location 134](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=134)) - The fear lived on in their practiced bop, their slouching denim, their big T-shirts, the calculated angle of their baseball caps, a catalog of behaviors and garments enlisted to inspire the belief that these boys were in firm possession of everything they desired. ([Location 140](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=140)) - my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. ([Location 154](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=154)) - Note: What does this mean? - their legacy was a great fear. ([Location 157](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=157)) - Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” ([Location 165](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=165)) - forced for centuries to live under fear. ([Location 175](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=175)) - He had already learned the lesson he would teach me that day: that his body was in constant jeopardy. ([Location 183](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=183)) - fear ([Location 200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=200)) - I knew that my portion of the American galaxy, where bodies were enslaved by a tenacious gravity, was black and that the other, liberated portion was not. ([Location 209](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=209)) - the killer of Michael Brown, ([Location 216](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=216)) - fear into rage, ([Location 228](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=228)) - prove the inviolability of their block, of their bodies, through their power to crack knees, ribs, and arms. ([Location 235](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=235)) - which crew ran which hood ([Location 236](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=236)) - no real distance between you and Trayvon Martin, ([Location 255](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=255)) - The question was never answered. I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance. ([Location 270](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=270)) - fear ([Location 280](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=280)) - We could not get out. ([Location 289](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=289)) - powerfully afraid. ([Location 292](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=292)) - in fear ([Location 293](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=293)) - Fear ruled everything ([Location 301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=301)) - “Good intention” is a hall pass through history, a sleeping pill that ensures the Dream. ([Location 345](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=345)) - The violence that undergirded the country, so flagrantly on display during Black History Month, ([Location 352](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=352)) - black nation.” ([Location 391](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=391)) - now in the crack era all we had were our fears. ([Location 394](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=394)) - a port in the American storm. ([Location 402](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=402)) - black talent. ([Location 408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=408)) - in proximity to both federal power and black power. ([Location 410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=410)) - “White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. ([Location 430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=430)) - Serious history was the West, and the West was white. ([Location 444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=444)) - Note: Not completely. - The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. ([Location 500](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=500)) - I felt myself in motion, still directed toward the total possession of my body, ([Location 502](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=502)) - how could I see these precious lives as simply a collective mass, ([Location 514](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=514)) - I didn’t yet realize that the boot on your neck is just as likely to make you delusional as it is to ennoble. ([Location 522](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B00SEFAIRI&location=522))