A Pietist’s Bookshelf

by John E. Phelan Jr.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. New York: Speigel & Grau, 2015.

The election of Barak Obama in 2008 was seen by many to signal the arrival of a “post-racial society.” In fact, his presidency has made it clear that the virulent strains of racism thought to be stamped out in the era of Bull Connor and George Wallace are very much alive and well in American society. In this age of smartphones and body cameras Americans have seen how little it takes for a black man, or indeed a black child, to be killed by the police. The thread of black life can be easily broken. This fragility of the black body, particularly the black male body, is a recurring theme in Ta-Nehisi Coates’ searing letter to his teenage son. Black men, Coates warns his son, can afford very few mistakes. Selling cigarettes on the street, playing your music too loud or examining a plastic gun in the toy department can get you killed if you are a black male.

Coates describes growing up in Baltimore where fear fueled rage, and rage fueled violence. Constant vigilance was required to make it to school and back in one piece. Young black men were taught by their mothers to “be twice as good” and never give anyone, especially the police, the impression that they represented a threat. As we know now, a momentary lapse in this vigilance, a thoughtless word, a hostile glare, even the wrong kind of clothes, is enough to get you beaten by a gang, handcuffed and thrown in prison by the police, or shot by a vigilante. This habit of vigilance is a staple of Coates’ life to this day. At one point he wonders how much of life he has missed because of this constant need to be wary of everything and everyone around him.

Many white Americans, Coates argues, are desperate to deny the realities of black life. They speak of “black on black” crime; they declare “all lives matter”; they insist that they “don’t see color.” To be white, Coates suggests, is to seek “exoneration.” White Americans pursue the “dream” regardless of the consequences for black and brown peoples or for the planet itself. Whereas “black on black crime” is seen as the result of a serious failure of the black community, young white men who kill school children or slaughter theater-goers or murder saints gathered to study the Bible are seen as “troubled individuals.” Prepared to see all black men as existential threats, however innocent, presentable or respectful, most people “who think they are white” (to use James Baldwin’s phrase) seem always prepared to believe the police accounts of black deaths, no matter how bizarre or contradictory the stories.

Coates warns his son about joining these “dreamers.” Not only is the dream itself ephemeral and destructive, no matter how much his son strives to join the world of the dreamers he will never be granted full membership. Coates found a home and community in “Mecca,” Howard University in Washington, D.C., where a diverse community of black and brown men and women gave him a sense of identity and joy. He encourages his son to relish the life and opportunities afforded him by the privileges of his upbringing and his life in his wildly diverse New York City community. At the same time he must never forget that to many he is just another black male—guilty until proven guilty. Coates does not want his son to live with the same wariness that shadows his life, but he does not want him naïve to the slender thread that is his life.

This makes tough reading for “people who think they are white.” And the immediate impulse is defensiveness. This was well illustrated by a column by David Brooks, who damned Coates’ book with faint praise. Brooks engaged in what can only be called “whitesplaining,” dismissing Coates’ experience, whining about his conclusions and generally proving Coates’ point. In his oracular arrogance Brooks perfectly illustrates the “white” pursuit of exoneration. How much better for Brooks had he sat with Coates’ experience and heard his arguments without responding. But no. Coates obviously struck a nerve and Brooks as an apologist for “dreamers” reflexively reacted.

Coates is not a believer. He is, in fact, an atheist. Near the end of the book he wonders if in this he has not missed something, given the strength and consolation that the black church has so often offered to his suffering community. Nevertheless, as I read the book I was reminded of Jeremiah. Coates is like that battered prophet telling the people of Jerusalem things they do not want to hear. Israel’s nationalistic and religious dreams would not save them. The “temple of the Lord” would not guarantee their safety. God’s covenant with them had been shattered. David Brooks is like King Jehoiakim, cutting off Jeremiah’s offensive words with a pen knife and throwing them into the fire, unaware that harsher words would follow. Denial would not change reality.

I have written a good deal about the blessings of the Pietistic tradition. At its best it is a call to an irenic relationship with other theological traditions. It is a call to a practical piety that not only comports one’s life according to the will of God, but engages in acts of generosity, compassion and justice. Spener and his heirs sought to encourage much more than mere personal piety. They founded schools, hospitals, orphanages, and supported the aspirations of ordinary people. But there is a dark side to the pietistic tradition that must be acknowledged. In its later manifestations Pietism has often been given to extreme subjectivism and individualism. This strain runs right through Evangelicalism and has made the movement slow to acknowledge systemic injustice and quick to blame individuals for their own problems. Such individualism is the easy route to exoneration. “I am not a racist” is a way of dismissing privilege and prejudice and refusing any accountability for the pain of the black community. Such “free will individualism,” as it has been called, is handy not only for denying complicity in racism, but in any number of other systemic evils, from poverty to global warming, to the marginalization and mistreatment of women, sexual minorities and anyone else deemed inferior.

Coates, like every prophet, speaks out of great pain and with little optimism. But he insists he is no cynic. He recognizes the beauty and glory of the world. He relishes the joy of family and community. He celebrates the intellect, artistry, inventiveness, and persistence of the black community. He is not optimistic, as the saying goes, but hopeful. Evangelicalism in the United States aligned itself with the “dreamers” a long time ago. In its subjectivism and individualism it ignored the systemic injustices that led to the fragility of both male and female black and brown bodies. It

focused on the interpersonal and individual; on sexual failings and theological disloyalties at the expense of justice, mercy and peace. It sowed to the wind and is reaping the whirlwind. Novelist Flannery O’Connor once said in defense of her grotesque characters, “to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures.” Ta-Nehisi has shouted. His figures are large and startling. It remains to be seen if the “dreamers” will hear or see. If David Brooks is any indication, I wouldn’t hold my breath.