Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men --- bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden? BETWEEN THE WORLD AND ME is Ta-Nehisi Coates’ attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son.