This is a wounded man telling his story of brokenness, pain, and deep sorrow. It is a letter to his son, in antithetical style of Maya Angelou’s letter to me (to all her daughters), and it strikes with the naked fear of a father’s warning to his beloved son against the evils of a sickly corrupted world with its twisted bent morals. He praises the beauty of the son’s mother, and remains in awe of her continued curiosity, her dreams and achievements... In vulnerability, he reveals the deep roots of his bitterness, sheds lofty ideals for hardcore pragmatism, and admits his dedication to a dogmatic hopelessness in the face of that Great (Unattainable) American Dream Lie. He doesn’t hold out hope for healing for himself and his generation, but he sees that maybe his son’s generation might hope—might have a hope—and even dares to suggest (briefly) that his son dream…

His writing always draws me in, and even here he uses beautiful language to share the worst ugliness humanity can’t seem to overcome. The fact is that between Ta-Nehisi Coates and the World the damage seems irreversible, but the suggestion is that possibly, for his son, the future may… possibly could… 

But he’ll never see it.