“But the belief in the preeminence of hue and hair, the notion that these factors can correctly organize a society and that they signify deeper attributes, which are indelible – this is the new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (p. 7)
Have you used this sample in your class? If so, please let us know how. What did you discuss? What activities did you do? How did students respond? Comment below!
Rutgers University-Camden 
We used this today in my class. Attempting to parse out all of the structures that are at play in this sentence was quite daunting for my class. I agree that this was possibly too complex, but although they had a hard time sectioning out the sentence, they were very adept at understanding it as a whole. We did a “What it says/does” exercise and it worked wonderfully. They understood that Coates is saying race is created, but that this sentence isn’t blaming any single person. It is a societal insitution that what you look like when you’re born signifies your status. As for what this sentence does, my students said that it acts as an argument, it introduces many of the ideas that will be at play in the rest of the book, and it also sets up the language that will be used throughout (like people that believe “they are white”).
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