Throughout American history there have been many successes and achievements that have differentiated America from the rest of the world, but what society fails to notice it is the racial oppression and violence that black people have endured throughout history and today. In the essay Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates and the poem Between the World and Me by Richard Wright, both authors use language to convey a message about how American history has been violent against blacks and how it is not was. not much has changed. This is seen in how both authors address ideas about how black people have been mistreated throughout history and how many Americans today hide the facts of the past. But in comparison with each other, the essay written by Coates explains how oppression and unjust treatment of blacks has led to a loss of innocence among young blacks compared to the poem where Wright explains the loss of faith in a superior being. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay In the essay Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, the author uses his writings to his son to convey the messages of how the black population faces difficulties such as oppression, concealment of mistreatment of blacks and the loss of innocence among young black Americans. Coates writes about the oppression of Black people in America through lenses focused on the past and the future. In the essay he uses slavery to show the reader that oppression in the past was focused on white Americans committing violent acts against slaves in order to instill in them the fear of gaining power and control over them for personal gain. This idea is represented by this quote: “And so slavery must be random wrath and random mutilation, the tearing open of heads and brains ejected into the river as the body tries to escape.” (Coates, 15). In this quote Coates describes the different forms of torture and punishment that slaves would be subjected to to show us readers that the hardships of the past for blacks were filled with violent acts. Coates also goes on to write about how the treatment blacks received in the past is still in place today through the administration of the police and not the white slave owners. “The destroyers are simply men who impose the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy. This legacy aspires to the shackling of black bodies.” (Coverings, 4). In this quote Coates writes about how law enforcement today focuses on enforcing old American ideologies, slavery and inferiority, on Black people through the destruction of Black lives and Black bodies. In addition to the hardships the Black community faces due to oppression, the Black community is also forced to hide America's mistreatment of Black people. This idea is represented in the example in which Coates recalls when he was talking to a journalist and says this: When the journalist asked me about my body, it was as if she was asking me to awaken her from the most beautiful dream. I've seen that dream my whole life. They are perfect homes with beautiful lawns. It's Memorial Day cookouts, block associations and driveways. The dream is tree houses and Cub Scouts. And for a long time I have wanted to escape into the Dream, fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option, because the Dream rests on our backs, the bed formed by our bodies. And knowing this, knowing that the Dream persists by waging war on the known world, I was sad for those who hosted me, I was sad for all those families, I wassad for my country, but above all, at that moment, I was sad for you. This narration of the meeting with the journalist by Coates shows us that although the history of mistreatment of black people is everywhere; many people would rather ignore it and enjoy their dream life, without worrying about how they got there or how others are affected by their actions. Another point where Coates hides mistreatment is revealed to us by this quote: “They were rebelling against history books that spoke of blacks only as sentimental “firsts”: the first black four-star general, the first black congressman, the first mayor, always presented in the confusing way of a Trivial Pursuit category. The serious story was the West, and the West was white.” (Coatings, 10). In this quote Coates refers to how Americans do not represent blacks equally throughout history and that when a black person makes history they are placed in the "Trivial Pursuit category" and not in textbooks where everyone can know them. The ultimate difficulty facing the black community, according to Coates, is the loss of innocence among young black men in America. This idea of ​​loss of innocence is outlined by Coates writing about his youthful life growing up in Baltimore. “To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked to the elements of the world, to all the guns and fists and knives and crack and rape and disease.” This shows a loss of innocence because Coates was exposed as a child to bad influences in his life that other children are not introduced to and this shows how the black youth of America are not protected from the harmful elements of the world. In similarity to the last point, another point where Coates demonstrates how the young black man loses innocence is shown by this quote: “The boy with the small eyes reached into his ski jacket and pulled out a gun.” (Coatings, 6). During this encounter Coates describes to the reader how when he was only in sixth grade there were kids like him who carried guns around and threatened people and this shows a loss of innocence because a child growing up shouldn't have to deal with the stress of not knowing that it could kill them any day. After analyzing the examples from Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, it is seen that he uses writing to convey messages about how the black population is facing difficulties such as oppression, concealing the mistreatment of blacks, and the loss of innocence among black American youth. In the poem Between the World and Me by Richard Wright, the author uses his writings about a person who finds the body of a tarred black man to expose the oppression and unfair treatment of blacks, the concealment of history, and the loss of faith. Wright portrays the oppression of blacks in the past through the way he writes about how a black man was tortured by his white captors, and when he was trying to speak the whites looked at him angrily and begged for worse things to happen as seen. from this excerpt from the poem: The flask of gin passed from mouth to mouth, cigars and cigarettes burned, the whore smeared red lipstick on her lips, and a thousand faces swirled around me, clamoring that my life would be burned ... And then they took me, stripped me, rattling their teeth in my throat until I swallowed my own blood. My voice was drowned in the roar of their voices, and my black, wet body slipped and rolled inside their hands as they tied me to the little tree. (Wright, 33-42) This quote shows that the idea that the unfair treatment and oppression of a black man among the white kidnappers was prevalent because even if he tried to speak up they would not consider it.