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Stephanie Garcia

Professor Huerta

English 1T

12 February 2018

The Land Of The Dreamers

The American dream has motivated its citizen since the day of its dawn. It gives hope to

the American people from any socioeconomic background and race to “come up” or become

anything they want to be. The land of the “free” ensures “the dream” to anyone, through its equal

outreach it has that makes it accessible to anyone to achieve. The problem with that statement is

that through certain policies, people of color in America do not receive “the dream” as easily as

someone who is perceived to be “White” does. The violent history that America has towards

people of color from slavery to mass incarceration in today’s society, continues to fail Americans

the right they have to achieve “the dream” in an equal opportunity as any other “White

American”. In the book, Between The World And Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Coates sheds light on

the issue of the American Dream in the perspective of a black man living in America. He wrote

this book as a letter to his son in response to the police brutally in specific to Michael Brown’s

case. He writes to his son about “the dream” and how it was never to be attainable to him nor

anyone who is a person of color. Coates explains to his son about the hardships that he must

know about and and how he should go about overcoming them as a young black man growing up

in America. Although the American Dream drives the American people to strive to better

themselves, this dream is unattainable to people of color, because American policies have

belittled or have prevented them from achieving success.

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The constitution of the United States of America states again and again the phrase “we

the people. Politicians throw the word “ The people”, but what does this phrase really mean? The

Constitution of the United States of America states, “We the people of the United States, in order

to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility …, and sure the

blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution of the

United States”. In other words, the constitution gives the American people the right to be

liberated from custom normatives. “ We the people” , and “the people” is coded language that is

meant to be perceived to have equal opportunity for all, but subjected to only white rich males. It

is evident that when our founding fathers wrote the constitution it was meant to protect and

established the rights of rich white American men. In similar perspective, Coates describes the

phrase “we the people” to his son, “.. 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”(6). Coates sheds light on the term “the people” by using his mother and wife to

show the two different generations since being “free” or apart of “the people”, for they weren’t

included to be liberated by the constitution; they are black and female. Coates uses this

comparison to emphasize how coded language has propelled to today’s policies preventing

anyone who does not fit the look from achieving “the dream”.

The American Dream is put in place to numb people of color and those to believe to be

“white” from the harsh reality in which they are not apart of. A dreamer is a person of any race

and color that believes that he/she is “safe” from the unequal system, because he/she has

achieved that “dream”, so he/she believes to be apart of “the people”(Coates 10). Dreamers

choose to forget that they were once and still are not apart of the equal opportunity in all aspects

of attaining the “dream”. Examples of dreamers are Mabel and Prince Jones, for they have
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believed to be part of “the people” because they have achieved success. They forget about all the

problems they had, and how certain political issues may have harmed them such as redlining or

standardization in schools. “The officer who killed Prince Jones was black. The politicians who

empowered this officer to kill were black. Many of the black politicians..seemed

unconcerned….according to this theory “safety” was a higher value than justice, perhaps the

highest value”(Coates 83-84). Coates shows that even those that have experienced the dream

can't escape the injustice although they have favored “safety” ,their bodies are killed without any

real reason other than the pigment of their skin. When dreamers reach this “dream” they become

oblivious to the world around them, as they add themselves into this whole new world, the world

of believing to be “white” they lose sight of the faults in the dream.

Through the violent history toward people of color such as slavery, and police brutality

now in today’s society, the destruction of their bodies has become a ritual. Coates describes the

black body to as an out of body experience, in which you can see all the destruction to your body

and you cannot do anything about it. A black body is the body of an African American watching

their body either getting destroyed or watching for the destruction itself. The destruction of the

black body physically, mentally, and emotionally through the years has become a custom in

American history. For example black bodies such as Michael Brown that lay in the street for

hours after being killed by police, is left to be seen for hours as evidence for looking like a

criminal, or simply for your great grandfather being a slave. Bodies like Michael Brown are

examples of modern day lynching in which their bodies pay the prize for believing in the dream.

“To be black in baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world,

before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease. The nakedness is not an error, nor

pathology. The nakedness is correct and intended result of policy, the predictable upshot of
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people forced for centuries to live under fear”(Coates 9). In making this comment, Coates urges

us to see the vulnerability of having a black body when he repeatedly states “nakedness”to

emphasize how it feels to present yourself to the word everyday to things that are forced on you

to kill yourself or be killed. Then he lists “guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease”is where

he draws a picture of what physically kills the black body, but then explains what truly kills the

black body is the mental and emotional state of fear. The essence of Coates argument is that fear

within the colored communities is intended to keep these community from achieving any

success, through inbedding fear of losing their bodies to then physically kill themselves.

The black body is trained to be guard and take the abuse, which is why it uses violence

towards other black bodies in order to feel some sort of false sense of autonomy. Gangs are a

great example of this false sense of autonomy, these members find justice in the “street” rather

than finding justice through the system that fails them. Coates describes the danger in fear as, the

fuel that runs the black community or any colored community who uses violence to cover up the

feeling of fear that involves losing their bodies to that same violence. They mask themselves,

changing the way they walk, dress, and talk around certain groups in order to change the way

people view them. “... the defining feature of being drafted into the black race was the

inescapable robbery of time, because the moments we spent readying the mask, or readying

ourselves to accept half as much, could not be recovered”(Coates 91). Coates reminds us that the

American dream has a time, it is a goal setter in which people set goals for themselves to achieve

certain accomplishments at certain times in their lives. And if the dream has a time limit and you

spent all your time molding yourself to fit in or rather living a fixed mindset then you do not get

to experience of “the dream”.

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Although the American dream is what hold the hope in the american people, it is

important to realize the faults in this dream. The American dream is a dream in which, we need

to “wake up” from not to get rid of it, but to replace its unattainable outreach with an equal

outreach to all. It is important to see the faults in this dream ,so that one doesn’t fall asleep, in

compliance ,but awake in the endless possibility that it can have so that one can better

themselves with restrictions.

Works Cited

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the world and me. Spiegel & Grau.
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United States, Congress, “The Constitution of the United States, of America: as proposed

by the convention held at Philadelphia, Sept. 17, 1787, and since ratified by the several states.”

The Constitution of the United States, of America: as proposed by the convention held at

Philadelphia, Sept. 17, 1787, and since ratified by the several states, Printed by John Fenno, no.

69, High-Street, 1791.