The Mecca? Why does Coates refer to Howard University as his Mecca? What does he mean by “the crossroads of the black diaspora” (40)? In your explanation, be sure to include a quote from Coates.

1.) Coates refers to Howard University as his Mecca possibly due to the sheer amount of black history that had taken place there. Mecca, to people of religion, see Mecca as the very center of their religion and their beliefs, and an integral part of their history. “I first witnessed this power out on the Yard, that communal green space in the center of the campus where the students gathered and I saw everything I knew of my black self multiplied out into seemingly infinite variations.”(Coates 40). A diaspora is the dispersion of people of the Jewish faith outside of Israel. With this quote, Coates explains that in seeing all of these balck students, along with the placement of the university and the alumni before them, this was where black people from all walks of life came and joined together. Just as Mecca was important to the history and culture of the Jews, Howard University to Coates was the center of so many notable black people in recent history.

Coates writes of his “working theory” (46) and “imagining history to be a unified narrative” (47). Why might this have been important for Coates? What did he find/realize in his investigation? In your response, be sure to provide textual evidence from Coates. Note: we’re exploring together; it’s ok not to have all the answers, the right answer, etc.

2.)Trying to put together one coherent timeline of history was probably important to Coates because he wanted to learn at what point did people decide that having a different skin tone made someone below someone else. “The smokescreen would lift. And the villains who manipulated the schools and the streets would be unmasked.”(Coates 47). Although this was what he desired to learn by reading the history books, he quickly learned that it would not be that cut and dry. So many historical accounts had contradicted one another and he discovered “factions, and factions within factions.”(Cotes 47) of people who all had varying versions of the same time period. He simply set out in order to find the whole truth of why things were the way they were, but he found it to be a much more complicated topic than he had first expected.

How does Coates make meaning of his college experience? What’s his college story? Explain with evidence.

3.)When Coates was going through college, he thought that the classes that he was taking were kind of important, but not nearly as much as what he learned by reading in the library. “The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free.”(Coates 48). In college, he wanted to guide his own education, not learn about something because someone told him to. He instead would rather have educated himself about what he thought was interesting and important, than feel trapped by a higher education curriculum. By basically only studying what he wanted to, he shaped his own education regardless of what he was told to do. This gave his education more meaning to him than doing what he was told in his classes.

Freebie. Help us examine some specific part of Coates’ text by offering a Quotation, providing a 3-4 sentence Comment on it, and asking a Question that flows from the quote and/or comment.

4.)“What was required was a new story, a new history told through the lens of our struggle. I had always known this, had heard the need for a new history in Malcolm, had seen the need addressed in my father’s books.”(Coates 44). This assertion by Coates seems to be a monumental task, and also an incredibly difficult one. Not only is he saying that history itself is incomplete, but that it must also be wrong in some places. But through what he discovered in his history research, he learned that there is almost no part of history that doesn’t have multiple versions. If this is the case, then how are himself and others meant to even begin to figure out how to retell history from another perspective, especially since it has already passed.

Annotations

“But however it appears… all history.”(Coates 42). Coates is once again bringing up his idea that there is really no such thing as white. This still confuses me a lot, especially when he says that white could cease to exist, and there would still be people with straight hair and blue eyes. Does he mean that people should identify each other as their nationality and not the color of their skin?

“Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans.”(Coates 43). This connects to my English 110 Composition class, where we have just finished learning about cosmopolitanism and the implications for everyday life. We also learned about why it is so difficult to carry out cosmopolitanism when people’s views can be so different from each other. In a part of one of the articles that we read (Appiah), he described cosmopolitanism as the name of a challenge rather than a solution. We also wrote an essay and some reading responses on how cosmopolitanism can be used to cause a change in perspective.

“Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?”(Coates 44). Does Coates think that this is how black people are viewed today? I thought that maybe some really good strides toward equality had been made. His view could also have been shaped by how he grew up, which could be much different from how children grow up now.