“Letter to My Son” is a selection from Ta-Nehisi Coates’ book 

Between the World and Me.  As we

discussed in class, “Letter to My Son” is dense. Coates makes a complex argument about American
racism. He supports that argument with an extensive collection of historical and contemporary examples.
There is a lot to take in with Coates’ essay, but for our purposes you should focus your reading on two
things: 1) the genre features of Coates’ open letter and 2) Coates’ use of the body as a way understand
and define experience.

We’ve included some notes below. Anyone can edit this page, so feel free to add your own notes and
examples. We've also set up a discussion thread for Questions about Letter to My Son. Don't be afraid to
ask questions!

The Open Letter

An open letter is both personal and public, using the personal features of a letter to address issues of
public significance. In a summary of Coates’ book, Tressie McMillan Cottom states that an open letter
“snatches rhetoric from the sky and lands it in a kin relationship.” Further, she writes that an open letter
“makes esoteric debates tangible.” In short, she argues that an open letter allows for complex, difficult
topics to be more approachable and personal.

As you read Coates’ piece, explore which aspects of the piece feel like a letter and which do not. Where
does Coates speak directly to his son, Samori? Where does Coates seem to be engaging a broader
audience? Who do you think that broader audience is? How do Coates’ personal examples help you to
understand his argument?

A few points to look for:

 Look for places where Coates directly addresses his son with “you.” What does Coates say when he
addresses his son directly? How do these moments of direct address help to convey Coates’
message?
 Find the section about Howl’s Moving Castle. How does this shared experience between Coates and
his son help to make his larger argument? How does the personal story impact his message?
 Coates ends the piece with a very personal message to his son: “I would have you be a conscious
citizen of this terrible and beautiful world.” How does this final paragraph also speak to his larger
audience?

The Body
Coates uses the body as a persistent theme in his letter. How does his focus on the body help to convey
the experience of racism? Look for sections of the text where Coates directly addresses the body.

There are several times when Coates invokes the body in order to convey the specificity of experience:
 In reference to Trayvon Martin and other boys who have been shot, Coates writes: “Think of the
gasoline expended, the treads worn caring him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little
League. . . Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams.”
 In reference to slavery, Coates writes: “Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular,
specific enslaved woman, whose mind is as active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast as
your own; who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing
where the water eddies in a nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks
her sister talks too loud. . . ”

How do these specific details help to make events and experiences that can seem abstract become more
specific and relatable?

Here are a few other quotes about the body to help you explore. Look for other examples where Coates
refers to the body. How do these various references to the body help Coates to make his argument?

 “that this is your country, that this is your world, that this your body, and you must find some way to
living within the all of it”
 “racisim is a visceral experience: . . it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs,
cracks bones, breaks teeth”
 “the beauty of the black body was never celebrated in movies, on television shows, or in the
textbooks I’d seen as a child”
 “In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.”