The Permanent Classes Constructed by Naming Races

The result of the naming of two distinct racial groups is forcibly segregating people into permanent classes. As Ta-Nehisi Coates writes on page 7 of his book, Between the World and Me, “race is the son of racism”. By saying this Coates is conveying racism came before the concept of race, meaning that society felt the need to segregate people and make social classes. To do this they came up with race as an excuse to justify separating groups of people and calling these groups upper and lower classes.  While the people assigned, by society, the lower class, black people, struggle to overcome their designated obstacles, the people assigned to the upper class, white people, choose to ignore this injustice, resulting in the lower class being demolished by these obstacles. The society I refer to is  made up of the privileged group, which Coates talks about as “the people who believe themselves to be white,” (7). “Believe” is when someone thinks something is true. Coates saying this word further shows that racial groups were made up and there is no white or black, just people who believe they are part of a race.

Later in his book Ta-Nehisi Coates explains to his son that being black is being “cast into a race in which the wind is always in your face,” (107). Using the word “cast” expresses that he was assigned into the lower class by society looking at his skin color, not his brain power or the kindness of his heart. Another word similar to “cast” is caste. Caste is the system of dividing society into inherited classes. Coates is trying to further convey that people are divided into classes by what society made race to be, inherited. “Wind” is a metaphor for the obstacles black people have to face: police discrimination, job availability, educational opportunity, etc. These obstacles push them further down into a metaphorical hole that any person, no matter race, could not get out of. The “wind” is also “always” coming at black people. Meaning once they triumph over one obstacle, giving them somewhat of a ladder out of the hole, another obstacle comes along to push them deeper into the hole.

These enforced classes were not made by black people and white people together, they were assigned by the white people. Coates reflects this belief by saying the classes were “imposed” on them, referring to black people (42). “Imposed” conveys that this idea, of classes, was unfamiliar to them and they didn’t even think to name races, let alone making them a factor in class designation, but the other race forced them to conform to their idea of superiority.

At a young age society teaches children that they are in either the upper or lower class. Coates witnesses white children commanding whole sidewalks while riding tricycles, forgetting to leave room for others, causing him to realize that black children are communicated “terror” and white children were communicated “mastery” (89). He knows a black child could never command the side walk, like the white child,  without causing a commotion. From a early age, they are taught “terror”, meaning they know that anyone will yell at them if they mess up. On the contrary white children are taught “mastery”, meaning that they are the ones yelling at the black child who messes up. The belief of “mastery” by white people has been rooted in our culture since 1619 when slavery begun in the United States, back when white people were the masters of black slaves. It’s horrible that 400 years later we still see white people thinking they are the masters of black people—did we not change as a society?

One place where white kids are taught that they are better than black kids is school. Even though teachers are not teaching this, the kids are learning it from their environment. While schools can’t legally segregate based off of race anymore, school systems use de facto segregation—segregation that happens in practice, not by law. They de facto segregate based off their neighborhood or testing into schools or finances. Since Brown vs. Board of Education the number of black people who go to school, specifically in the south, that is at least 50% white has risen, but since 1989 this number has rapidly decreased, according to Vox.

This is horrendous. Kids should not be segregated in school because this teaches them that they are born into a race and that they should not integrate with the other race. The white kids are, usually, placed into a school that gives them more opportunity. We should be showing the new generations that they are not in charge of one another, but they are equal, and the first way to do this is by integrating school and allowing all kids equal opportunity, instead of digging black kids into a hole that they will spend their whole adult life trying to get out of.