I read the NYT bestseller "Between the world and me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates, hailed by Toni Morrison as the successor of James Baldwin.
In this book Mr Coates explores how Americans have built an empire on the idea of "race," a falsehood that damages everyone
but most of all black women and men — black "bodies" exploited through slavery and segregation, and today threatened, locked up
and murdered out of all proportion.
It's a gripping account of what it means to be a black man in America, and the writer sums it up by stating that "in America it is traditional to destroy the black body — it is heritage." I knew that Africans have been enslaved in America for 250 years — at least
ten generations!— but only through real life stories of my friend on death row could I guess how deep the legacy of slavery
is seared in their flesh, and Mr Coates' harrowing description of it all left me breathless.
The book is very well written, yet after turning the last page I felt hungry for an answer to all that suffering that goes deeper than just the "body." Mr Coates doesn't believe in an afterlife nor in any invisible force. He fully identifies with this physical dimension, and the only solution he offers is to keep up the struggle. There is indeed a strong moral imperative to fight America's institutionalized racism, and especially the police brutality targeting black men. But balancing the scales of power is only part of the solution — true healing will take more. Because reacting solely from a perspective of anger and revolt, no matter how justified, keeps all those dynamics alive and kicking. Everything is energy — if we don't convert whatever comes our way into what we want it to become, we only get more of it.
Reducing life to this physical reality is like being colorblind; everything is black and white. You are triggered by what you see and experience: victims and perpetrators, and your automatic response is distrust, defense, and struggle.
However, you reap what you sow, without any exception. Your distrust keeps attracting distrust. Your hate only begets more hate.
But obstacle after obstacle the pain becomes so unbearable that you're ready to look at life from a different angle.
It may come in many ways: through a word, an encounter, a dream or a nightmare, lyrics of a song...
And suddenly there's a crack in your mind’s armor, and colors start seeping in. You open the door of your physical limitation
and you discover a Universe! You tentatively step into an infinite Energy that is luminous and loving and unconditional,
and you sense that this Life Force is actually the substance of everything that exists.
You start to see people beyond their toxic behavior, and without condoning that behavior in any way you choose to focus
on the Light in them. It's buried under many layers of fear or pride or violence, but it's always there. Always.
And what you focus on becomes stronger.
That is true healing, that is redemption: letting go of every charge except Love.
Love, the only Force capable of transmuting the collective pain of racism into brotherhood.