Between the World and Me, Part Two

      In Part Two of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book titled, Between the World and Me, Coates continues to talk about some themes that you see in Part One. These themes are fear, the body, and violence. The Dream and history (the other two themes we talked about in class) are also talked about in Part Two, but I think that the first three themes above are the most connected to one another. Part Two starts with Coates getting pulled over by the PG County police, a very well known department for their violence against black people. He was fearful for his life and for his body. The police wound up letting Coates go unharmed, but never gave him a reason for the stop.
     The PG County police are a big part of Part Two and police in general. Coates talks a lot about the “death” of Prince Carmen Jones, killed by a PG County police officer. I put death inside of quotation marks because Coates saw it as more than just a simple death. Coates saw it as a destruction of the body. This is seen when Coates says "Prince Jones was one of one, and they had destroyed his body, scorched his shoulders and arms, ripped open his back, mangled lung, kidney, and liver. I sat there a heretic, believing only in this one-shot life and the body." (page 79) The killing of Prince Jones shows why black people are so fearful in America. If they would kill a "...good Christian, scion of a striving class, patron saint of the twice as good..." (page 81) then who wouldn't they kill. And this is exactly as Coates sees it.  


   

   
   

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