Hardcover
Korean language
Published Nov. 6, 2016 by 열린책들.
도대체 미국이란 나라에 흑인은 어떤 존재인가? 우리가 익히 알고 있듯, 미국은 노예해방을 통해 흑인들에게도 자유와 평등권을 제공하고 ‘지금껏 지상에 존재했던 가장 위대하고 고귀한 국가’라고 자칭하고 있다. 하지만 역설적으로 인종차별은 20세기 중반을 넘어서까지 계속되었고, 오늘날 소위 레드라이닝을 통해 흑인들을 게토(흑인 빈민 지구)로 몰아넣고 있다.
2015~2016년, 미국 사회에 인종 문제를 향한 도발적인 주장을 던지며 커다란 논쟁을 불러왔던 책 『세상과 나 사이』가 출간되었다. 이 책의 저자 타네하시 코츠는 아프리카계 미국인으로 오늘날 미국에서 벌어지는 흑인 살해를 단순히 몇몇 인종주의자의 돌발 행동이나 KKK단과 같은 광기 어린 집단들의 문제가 아닌, 노예제를 통해 부를 일군 미국의 ‘유산과 전통’, 바로 미국의 역사에서 찾고 있다.
애초에 미국에서 흑인은 한 번도 ‘국민’이었던 적이 없었다는 저자의 도발적인 주장은 흑인 중산 계급 출신의 프린스를 범죄 용의자로 오인한 사복 차림의 경찰이 그를 총으로 쏘며, 프린스가 사망했던 사고를 근거로 들며 미국 사회는 ‘계급’보다 ‘인종’이 더 큰 힘을 발휘하고 있음을 역설한다. 북소믈리에 한마디! 책의 제목은 린치 현상을 묘사한 리처드 라이트의 동명 시에서 차용한 것이다. 저자가 …
도대체 미국이란 나라에 흑인은 어떤 존재인가? 우리가 익히 알고 있듯, 미국은 노예해방을 통해 흑인들에게도 자유와 평등권을 제공하고 ‘지금껏 지상에 존재했던 가장 위대하고 고귀한 국가’라고 자칭하고 있다. 하지만 역설적으로 인종차별은 20세기 중반을 넘어서까지 계속되었고, 오늘날 소위 레드라이닝을 통해 흑인들을 게토(흑인 빈민 지구)로 몰아넣고 있다.
2015~2016년, 미국 사회에 인종 문제를 향한 도발적인 주장을 던지며 커다란 논쟁을 불러왔던 책 『세상과 나 사이』가 출간되었다. 이 책의 저자 타네하시 코츠는 아프리카계 미국인으로 오늘날 미국에서 벌어지는 흑인 살해를 단순히 몇몇 인종주의자의 돌발 행동이나 KKK단과 같은 광기 어린 집단들의 문제가 아닌, 노예제를 통해 부를 일군 미국의 ‘유산과 전통’, 바로 미국의 역사에서 찾고 있다.
애초에 미국에서 흑인은 한 번도 ‘국민’이었던 적이 없었다는 저자의 도발적인 주장은 흑인 중산 계급 출신의 프린스를 범죄 용의자로 오인한 사복 차림의 경찰이 그를 총으로 쏘며, 프린스가 사망했던 사고를 근거로 들며 미국 사회는 ‘계급’보다 ‘인종’이 더 큰 힘을 발휘하고 있음을 역설한다. 북소믈리에 한마디! 책의 제목은 린치 현상을 묘사한 리처드 라이트의 동명 시에서 차용한 것이다. 저자가 자란 노스웨스트볼티모어는 백인 사회와 첨예하게 분리된 흑인들의 섬 같은 곳 이었지만, 그 반대편에는 ‘바라는 거라고는 인기 많은 여자 친구를 얻는 게 전부인 백인 소년들이 살고 있는’ 교외의 세상이 있었다. 그런 점에서 이 책의 제목은 미국이 제시하는 자유, 평등, 부 같은 이상과 아프리카계 미국인이 처한 현실 사이의 심각한 괴리를 암시한다.
I agree with Toni Morrison that "this is required reading". Whether or not Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this precisely for his son vs. His son and others, the book was short yet profound. Personal, brutally honest, compelling, and very powerful. Highly recommended.
An eloquent journey into a side of American life that is foreign territory to me.
Rating unchanged upon second reading. Added a few passages to remember. I'm looking forward to discussion with a new-to-me group this weekend.
Rating unchanged upon second reading. Added a few passages to remember. I'm looking forward to discussion with a new-to-me group this weekend.
A first-hand account of what it means to be an African-American. Profound, penetrating, moving yet tranquil in tone.
I don't know that I can add anything that hasn't already been said by just about any of the reviews I've seen about this book.
The author's voice - both written and spoken - is clear and authentic and powerful. As a white woman who grew up in a racial diverse family in a racially diverse area, there were some things in the book that I absolutely recognized but even more that I'll never experience. I highly recommend this book to everyone.
This book is a chronicle of the mental and emotional changes of a sensitive man living in a black body in America. It's at times poetic and honest about deep emotion, and though most of the time he's addressing his son, the author speaks to the silent observer who takes their white body for granted in the luxury of ignorance. He never uses the term "white privilege," and he's less accusing than James Baldwin, but he welcomes the reader into his head and to see with his eyes.
"I wanted you to see different people living by different rules."
Coates has a complicated relationship with the place that he grew up. He complains that he was in a fight for survival, keeping his body safe, and putting him at the very bottom rung of Maslowe's hierarchy of needs. However, he justifies the very system of violence that he abhors, he …
This book is a chronicle of the mental and emotional changes of a sensitive man living in a black body in America. It's at times poetic and honest about deep emotion, and though most of the time he's addressing his son, the author speaks to the silent observer who takes their white body for granted in the luxury of ignorance. He never uses the term "white privilege," and he's less accusing than James Baldwin, but he welcomes the reader into his head and to see with his eyes.
"I wanted you to see different people living by different rules."
Coates has a complicated relationship with the place that he grew up. He complains that he was in a fight for survival, keeping his body safe, and putting him at the very bottom rung of Maslowe's hierarchy of needs. However, he justifies the very system of violence that he abhors, he casts it as an act of defiant identity creation and protection for the people living in his community from outsiders. It's very complicated for him as he talks to his son. He wants the best for his son, and he doesn't want him "blinded by fear" when dealing with the rest of the world, but he still wants him to remember where he came from and the struggle of his people, who are they his people? Are they really a race? Race is a concept created by the oppressor, so it can't be that. The conflict of wanting to pass on your child a Heritage, but not the negative aspects of that heritage hold universal appeal.
His experience of feeling free from all of the racial baggage that he experienced every day in New York City is not uncommon among American people in Paris. The idea that learning French in school seems pointless because you don't know any French people to talk to transforms into realizing subjects like French are Bridges to other universes with a different culture, with an entirely different way of thinking, and an entirely different way of perceiving beauty.
It's hard to look at your own world through others' eyes. Especially when what you see is the exposure of privilege, and the denial of that privilege to so many. Coates takes a hard look at the American Dream, and through an essay to his teenage son, explains the origins of that Dream, the conflict at its core, and the willful blindness many have when it comes to the degree to which the Dream is denied to so many Americans.
This is not an easy book to read, but it is a critically important book.
Everyone should read this.
Required reading.
