1. Questioning
2. Comparison and contrast - What is it like or unlike?
3. Division - What is it composed of? What are its parts?
4. Classification: What kind of thing is it?
5. Process: How does it work?
6. Cause and effect: What causes it? What effect does it have?
7. Tone
7.1. Forceful
7.1.1. "To be black in Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns fists and knives, crack, rape and disease. The nakedness is not an error nor a pathology. The nakedness is the correct and intended result of policy. The predicable upshot of people forced for centuries to live under fear."
7.1.1.1. MEANING
7.2. Disdainful
7.2.1. "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"
7.2.1.1. The violence of America's history falls on the bodies of the oppressed. Racism kills the body, and the heart.
8. Rhythym
9. What & How
9.1. Summary versus Analysis
10. Substance
10.1. Timeline
10.2. Specific details
10.3. Changes; stylistic or
11. The Body
11.1. Figurative
11.1.1. "In accepting both the chaos of history and the fact of my total end, I was freed to truly consider how I wished to live — specifically, how do I live free in this black body?"
11.2. Literal
11.2.1. "These were the summonses that you answered with your left foot forward, your right foot back, your hands guarding your face, one slightly lower than the other, cocked like a hammer."
11.2.1.1. "the summonses" refer to the dangerous neighborhood calls that Coates must respond to with assurance; in the neighborhood, he must have his guard up at all times
11.2.2. "Difference in hue and hair is old. But the belief in the preeminence of hue and hair, the notion that these factors can correctly organize a society and that they signify deeper attributes, which are indelible-- this is the new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, and deceitfully, to believe that they are white."
11.2.2.1. "hue and hair" refers to the idea that the eye color, hair color, and/or skin color should not be factors to make up a society; rather, race should have nothing to do with how a society is organized
11.2.3. "And you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction."
11.2.3.1. Coates refers to the issue of police brutality and demonstrates that his life and freedom are not protected by law enforcement.
11.2.4. "When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream."
11.2.4.1. People have a sense of the American dream that they don't want to be taken away from them, and when the journalist was asking him questions, she was practically begging him not to answer honestly.
11.2.5. "But all our phrasing — race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy — serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience, that it dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth."
11.2.5.1. This is the reality of racism. It is the cold dark truth that it destroys lives. Coates acknowledges that our country tends to forget how devastating racism is to black bodies.
11.2.6. "Mostly they will receive pensions. And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion whose prerogatives include friskings, detainings, beatings, and humiliations. All of this is common to black people. And all of this is old for black people. No one is held responsible."
12. Definition - What is it?
12.1. "Racism- the need to describe bone deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them- inevitably follows from this inalterable condition"
12.1.1. The referencing of "bone deep features", and "humiliation and destruction", serve to show us that racism can be a weapon. This reference speaks on the power of racism, and how it has been used to harm others.
12.1.1.1. "bone deep features"
12.1.1.1.1. Baldwin?
12.1.1.1.2. Wideman
12.1.1.1.3. Richard Wright