[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-344576-105":59,"doc-detail-344576-en":131},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":124,"head_meta":126,"extra_data":128,"updated_unix":130},105,"en","letter-to-my-son-ta-nehisi-coates","Letter to My Son - Ta-Nehisi Coates","","A father writes to his son to explain how white America’s progress has been built on looting, violence, and the persistence of a “Dream” sustained by the suffering of others. He reflects on public discourse, political meanings of “people,” and the religious-like tolerance of American hypocrisy. 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He realizes the sadness is for the people watching, for families living in that illusion, and especially for his son.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"How does the author describe democracy and American wrongdoing?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"He calls democracy a forgiving god while listing American heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—as common kinds of sin. He argues the nation has never truly escaped betrayal of its own god, but redefines political meaning to avoid accountability.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"What message does the author give his son after the news of Michael Brown’s killers going free?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"He tells his son that this is his country, his world, and his body, and that he must find a way to live within all of it. 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The host was broadcasting from Washington, D.C., and I was seated in a remote studio on the Far West Side of Manhattan. A satellite closed the miles between us, but no machinery could close the gap between her world and the world for which I had been summoned to speak. When the host asked me about my body, her face faded from the screen, and was  \n5 replaced by a scroll of words, written by me earlier that week.  \nThe host read these words for the audience, and when she finished she turned to the subject of my body, although she did not mention it specifically. But by now I am accustomed to intelligent people asking about the condition of my body without realizing the nature of their request. 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  \n10 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.  \nThere is nothing extreme in this statement. Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God. This defiance is not to be much dwelled upon.  \nDemocracy is a forgiving God and America’s heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—are specimens of sin, so  \n15 common among individuals and nations that none can declare themselves immune. In fact, Americans, in a real sense, have never betrayed their God. When Abraham Lincoln declared, in 1863, that the battle of Gettysburg must ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” he was not merely being aspirational. At the onset of the Civil War, the United States of America had one of the highest rates of suffrage in the world. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people”  \n20 but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term people to actually mean. In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. As for now, it must be said that 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.  \nThat Sunday, on that news show, I tried to explain this as best I could within the time allotted. But at the end of the  \n25 segment, the host flashed a widely shared picture of a 12‐year‐old black boy tearfully hugging a white police officer. Then she asked me about “hope.” And I knew then that I had failed. And I remembered that I had expected to fail. And I wondered again at the indistinct sadness welling up in me. Why exactly was I sad? I came out of the studio and walked for a while. It was a calm late‐November day. Families, believing themselves white, were out on the streets. Infants, raised to be white, were bundled in strollers. And I was sad for these people, much as I was sad  \n30 for the host and sad for all the people out there watching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized then why I was sad. When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is tree houses and the Cub Scouts. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an  \n35 option, because the Dre","cbCaii4ha9DMoUvt","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaii4ha9DMoUvt","pdf",527905,12,"English","# Son\n## The host and the meaning of losing the body\n## Democracy, heresy, and what “people” means\n## The Dream, sadness, and the persistence of violence\n## Michael Brown and the birth of disillusionment\n## The deaths that define the son’s 15th year","[{\"question\":\"Why does the author feel sadness during the television segment?\",\"answer\":\"He connects the host’s question about his body to a demand that he help awaken belief in a comforting dream. He realizes the sadness is for the people watching, for families living in that illusion, and especially for his son.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the author describe democracy and American wrongdoing?\",\"answer\":\"He calls democracy a forgiving god while listing American heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—as common kinds of sin. He argues the nation has never truly escaped betrayal of its own god, but redefines political meaning to avoid accountability.\"},{\"question\":\"What message does the author give his son after the news of Michael Brown’s killers going free?\",\"answer\":\"He tells his son that this is his country, his world, and his body, and that he must find a way to live within all of it. He emphasizes that he does not expect things to be okay, and he wants the son to carry that reality forward.\"}]","Letter to My Son - Ta-Nehisi Coates | PDF",1790054525,18]