Between the World and Me Pg. 25-50

At the beginning of this portion of the book, Coates is talking about the statistics of black males and the relationship between them dropping out of school and prison. He also talks about his own struggles with school and how so much pressure has been placed on the school system because of the stats he talked about. Coates himself did not particularly enjoy school a lot of times and did not see how learning things like the Pythagorean theorem were keeping him out of prison. When he was talking about how he felt that the schools were "drugging" them with a false morality i was kind of shocked. I myself don't always enjoy school but I have never expected anything more than what school has given me. It was different for them however as school was presented to them as a way out and a way to keep themselves safe from the streets. To them, the school was more than just a place for learning and at times that escape seems like it overshadows the learning aspect. These kids were basically taught that they either had to fit in at school or they were bound for the streets and prison. That fact surprised me as well and is something that I have never really thought about before. 

Coates also discusses his own life and how he has come to answer some of the bigger questions that he has had. From a young age, he was taught to ask questions about his own motivations and answer them so that he could bring himself "into consciousness" as he says. This way he was able to investigate the larger part of his life and be able to analyze and answer the bigger questions that he had about it. This brought him to realize that he himself was not innocent and so how could he expect others who were just as human as him to be innocent. This gave him a much different view of life and more questions for him to answer. This realization is something that I feel is pretty important and something not many of us are able to grasp. Many people cannot see the flaws in themselves and so they expect others to be perfect and judge them harshly when they are not. 

A lot of these pressures and things that Coates describes I have never had to experience because I was never had to think about what would happen to me if I dropped out of school. A lot of things he talked about made me stop to think and consider all of the things that I have never had to experience. However, when he started talking about realizing our own flaws and being able to look at the world and know that we are not perfect that was something that I realized I needed to do also.