Update - Woodland Park Administration Pulls Course Material

Update - the Woodland Park School District has pulled the book "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates from being used for course material. Here are were some of the quotes from the book:

Page 6: American History: 

“Specifically, the host wished to know why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history.”

Page 8: what it means to be white:

“As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and me the right to secure and govern our own bodies.”

Page 42: how the color one’s light skin defines one:

“ “White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, “white people” would cease to exist for a want of reasons.”

Page 54: how the color of one’s dark skin defines one:

“Did black skin really convey nobility? Always? Yes. What about the blacks who’d practiced slavery for millennia and sold slaves across the Sahara and then across the sea? Victims of a trick. Would those be the same black kings who birthed all of civilization?”

Page 79: the problem with the police:

“The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs.”

Page 86: Ta-Nehisi describes his feelings as the World Trade Center buildings collapse on September 11th2001 in front of his eyes: 

“That evening, I stood on the roof of an apartment building with your mother, your aunt Chana, and her boyfriend, Jamal. So we were there on the roof, talking and taking in the sight – great plumes of smoke covered Manhattan Island. Everyone knew someone who knew someone who was missing. But looking out upon the ruins of America, my heart was cold. I had disasters all my own.”

“In the days after, I watched the ridiculous pageantry of flags, the machismo of firemen, the overwrought slogans.”

“I could see no difference between the officer who killed Prince Jones and the police who died, or the firefighters who died. They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were the menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could – with no justification – shatter my body.”

Page 89: Ta-Nehisi describes watching white families in New York City: 

“That was where I saw white parents pushing double-wide strollers down gentrifying Harlem boulevards in T-shirts and jogging shorts. Or I saw them lost in conversation with each other, mother and father, while their sons commanded entire sidewalks with their tricycles. The galaxy belonged to them, and as terror was communicated to our children, I saw mastery communicated to theirs.”

Page 91:

“This is how they steal our right to smile. No one told those little white children, with their tricycles, to be twice as good. I imagined their parents telling them to take twice as much. It seemed to me that our own rules redoubled plunder.”

Page 103: Ta-Nehisi defines his view of the American legacy:

“All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black. 

Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body – it is heritage.”