"You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable." 
 I feel ashamed to admit that I waited so long to read this book, it's been hanging out on my shelves for over a year and I kept putting it off until I finally decided this was the time. In this book Coates pens a sort of love letter to his son but it's really a love letter to anyone who is willing to listen to what it is like to be a black man in America, it is a plea to understand what it is like to live in their skin and to see things the way they do. Our story begins when his son hears the ruling of Michael Brown, and he tells his father "I've got to go." And so Coates talks to his son via this book in an attempt to show him that he too is angry, that he too is frustrated but it's more than a rant, this is an intelligent compilation of ignored history and shared timelines of all black people. 
 Coates takes us back to growing up in Baltimore and going to the 'Mecca', Howard University, loosing a friend to police brutality and the impact of that loss and how it haunts him. This book is one of those that I need to reread and mark and share and read again and develop a relationship with it that will continue teaching me new things for years to come. 
 Nothing in this book is 'wrong' because everything in this book is how Coates feels and how many many others feels so how can I, as a white Hispanic, trample those feelings? It is a gut-wrenching read and many times I raged along with Coates and I felt his forceful frustration at the continual systematic racism embedded into our society that is invisible to all those of us who are not black. Coates does not sugar coat, he will make you uncomfortable, he will make you evaluate how you see things, how you respond and most importantly how we ignore as long as it doesn't affect us. 
 Incredible, incredible read, I cannot recommend it enough especially if you live in any colonized country where all of these same strands continue to manifest themselves since they were never handled. 
 Needless to say, I will read whatever Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, he is the James Baldwin of this generation.