1. What is the relationship between education and success? As you reread Coates’s essay, look for places where he talks about the goals of education and the consequences of failing (or even succeeding) in school. How are these inflected by race and class?
In my opinion, the relationship between childhood education and success is very important. Not only is the ability to read, write, think critically, etc. very important, but also developing intangible qualities such as empathy, collaboration, and respect. All of which are essential in later success. In this letter to his young son, Coates gives a very harsh, yet fair criticism of how the Baltimore educational system failed to provide him with these important qualities. Instead, he says that the educational system drugged him with a sense of false morality. Which is to suggest that his education was not actually about learning, it was a means of escape from death and penal warehousing (Coates 93). Furthermore, he explains that if black men dropped out of school it was also damaging as it would be an indicator that the majority (60%) of them would go to jail. This letter further explores this issue through the lens of race and class. Coates put his educational experience in conversation to that of a white child’s. He states, “The world had no time for the childhoods of black boys and girls … why — for us and only us — is the other side of free will and free spirits an assault upon our bodies?” (Coates 93). Coates is introducing the topic of race, and then explains how his education was almost second tier to that of a white child’s. Throughout the rest of the letter, Coates continues to refer to race as the separating factors between poor and rich, between good education and poor education, and between failure and success.
2. Coates’s book (from which this excerpt is taken) is framed as a letter to his young son. As you review the essay, consider the impact that form has on content. In what ways does this essay reflect the form of a letter? In what ways is it clear Coates has a larger audience in mind? How do form and audience interact?
I think this essay’s letter form gives it a sense of honesty. This is reflected in the essay’s content as he explores the issues of growing up in west Baltimore from a very personal side. He recounts the dangers of the community, the emotions, the cynical outlook he had on life. Furthermore, because it’s a letter to his young son it seems as though he’s giving him a warning. He’s warning what life could look like he fell victim to the environment that trapped so many other people he grew up with in a cycle of crime and poverty. I think the essay also reflects a letter form through the use of short paragraphs. On a few occasions he breaks from the traditional paragraph style to have one or two sentences by themselves. I think this gives the essay a conversational tone, similar to the tone in a letter. This really helps him engage with the reader, and makes it seem as though he’s making a plea for attention to the issue of poor education. While this essay is formed as a letter to his young son, there are instances that show he may be appealing to a larger audience. Often times in the essay he uses the pronouns “we”, “us”, “our”, to refer to the general community of west Baltimore. This is present in the letter when Coates says, “We could not get out. The ground we walked was trip-wired. The air we breathed was toxic. The water stunted our growth. We could not get out” (Coates 94). In other words, Coates is telling the reader that his experiences were not unique to him. Instead, they applied to the larger community of children that lived in west Baltimore.
