Rhetorical Analysis: Coates' work

Writing 1
02-28-2020
Complete Draft
I have not always been a keen reader of Coates' work. One of the main reasons is that I have heard people have divided opinions on his works. The fact that people have talked about his works so much has also made me falsely believe that I know enough about him and that there may be no need to go through his works. I was wrong. I dropped this idea and read one of his works, and I must admit that he has addressed one of the most controversial social and racial issues in the society in the simplest way possible, in a way that no one's feelings are hurt. This is because he uses the approach of addressing a letter to his son, making it sound like a father-son affair and not targeting the broader audience.
By reading his works, I have concluded that Coates is one of the renowned writers on matters of social and racial equality in society. His most significant interest is highlighting such social evils as racism in society and calling on people to be aware of it and stamp it out in any way possible. Coates frames his new book as a letter that is addressed to his son. In the book, he delivers an exciting and beautiful lyrical call for consciousness amid the racial profiling that is widespread in America. He does this in the best way possible, in a way that leaves it up to the reader to make up the central idea that he wants to communicate.
The book is torn between the tension of the particular havoc that it wrecks and the broad sweep of history regarding racial profiling against blacks in American society. So it requires one to read in between the line. Coates considers his physical safety to be endangered, just like any other black man, in America in 2015. As such, he addresses racial profiling with an equal measure of love and dread (Coates 48). Therefore, the situation makes raising a self-possessed child to be an assignment that needs keenness. "I am speaking to you as I always have – as the sober and serious man I have always wanted you to be, who does not apologize for his human feelings, who does not make excuses for his height, his long arms, his beautiful smile. You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable." In this case, it is evident how Coates considers the best way of being conscious of racism and how to handle it. He adds: "None of that can change the math anyway" (50). Such a brutal statement shows that Coates considers racial profiling to be deeply-rooted and thus almost impossible to stamp out completely.
I also note that Coates intends to show the wider readership and his son that the math is deeply ingrained, dating back to the slavery period. "Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor – it is not so easy to get a human being to commit their body against its elemental interests," he states. "And so enslavement must be not just violence...