Americans believe in the reality of "race" as a defined, indubitable feature of the natural world. Racism - the need to ascribe bone-deep features to people and then humiliate, reduce, and destroy them - inevitably follows from this inalterable condition. In this way, racism is rendered as the innocent daughter of Mother Nature, and one is left to deplore the Middle Passage or the Trail of Tears the way one deplores an earthquake, a tornado, or any other phenomenon that can be cast as beyond the handiwork of men.
This quote from Ta-Nehisi Coates' "Between the World and Me" poignantly challenges the deep-seated belief in race as a natural and immutable fact. It draws attention to the troubling way society legitimizes racism by framing it as an inherent part of our world—akin to natural disasters that are beyond human control or responsibility. This metaphor is both powerful and disturbing because it reveals a collective abdication of moral agency, suggesting that...
