In a letter to his son, Coates describes his life growing up in Baltimore, attending Howard University, marrying and fathering a son, and living and writing in New York City.  However, that is only the bare bones of this epistle.  This heart felt work of nonfiction is really the plight of the black man in a white dominated world-the pain, the anger and the injustice.  Coates uses strong, relentless language to express how he feels about our country’s treatment of blacks for over two hundred and fifty years.  As a white privileged female, I felt shame, guilt and hopelessness as I read Between the World and Me, yet I am very glad that I read it.