1. Three photos of annotations:
2. Why does Coates refer to Howard University as his Mecca? What does mean by “the crossroads of the black diaspora,” (40)?
Coates refers to Howard University as his Mecca because it is where his world opened up. Coates describes Mecca as “a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body,” (40). After not feeling very empowered in his beginning years of school, Coates was now surrounded by people who had similar interests as him, like history. In college, Coates was able to access a network of peers like never before.
“The crossroads of black diaspora,” (40) could be Coates referring to all Black people of different backgrounds coming together all under the university. While describing who attends the university, Coates writes, “There were Californian girls turned Muslim, born anew . . . Tabernacle fanatics and mathematical geniuses,” (41).
3. Coates writes of his “working theory” (46) and “imagining history as a unified narrative” (47). Why might this be important to Coates? What did he find/realize in his investigation? In your response, include textual evidence.
History is often portrayed by many different viewpoints, and is not objective. Coates talks about his “working theory” (46) and “imagining history as a unified narrative” (47). This may be important to Coates because it would have showed him a clear path in history. Instead, Coates found that histories of different people overlapped and figuring out everything in a clear line was a mess. Coates mentions, “I did not find a coherent tradition marching lockstep but instead factions, and factions within factions,” (47). This was what Coates had to sort in order to understand different portions of history.
4. Freebie. Include a quote, 3-4 sentence comment on it, and a question that flows from the quote and/or comment?
“I was barely out of the fog of childhood, where questions simply died in my head,” (62-63). Coates is talking about having access to more information, and being able to ask the questions he wants to know. There is not more filter from school, or “magic” that was talked about in the last discussion, Coates is able to have the freedom of knowledge. From the page, you can tell Coates’s joy of happiness about this new change. What my question is, is: Why does Coates mention that “questions simply died in my head,” (63), even though he is able to ask what he wants to know?
Works Cited:
Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Spiegel & Grau, 2015.
