As racial tensions simmer, the only way we can move toward healing is by unvarnished dialogue. A journalist’s creed is to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” In his book “Between The World And Me,” Atlantic Monthly writer attempts to do both. Yet his writing is one-dimensional and misinterprets his own lived expression of the American Dream. In this way, he does not comfort the afflicted, and his tunnel vision makes it difficult for the comfortable to envision any positive steps toward effective succor. Coates’ criticisms of American culture and history do not leave his fellow African-Americans with an accurate sense of their power and potential, and he ignores or undervalues the tremendous societal progress wrought by hardworking activists of all races. “Between The World And Me,” is written as a letter to Coates’ 15-year-old son, who was stunned by judicial response to Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson, Missouri. Similar to David Brooks’ sensitivity in critiquing the book though he is white, at a journalistic level, I have spent many hours in Harlem and throughout New York City, highlighting African-American changemakers who operate in realms that seems far removed from Coates’ nihilism. At a personal level, I have two…
See original post: OP-ED: What Ta-Nehisi Coates Overlooks By Dismissing The American Dream