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Daniel Plancarte

Professor Susie Huerta

English 1T

12 February, 2018

The False Hopes of the Dream

The “dream” has created false hopes for people of color in the United States. The

“dream” in the United States embodies the idea that anyone can achieve their goals of a big

house and a well-paying job. The dream is supposed to create hope for anyone coming from all

over the world because these people can become successful and be able to have what they have

always dreamed of having as long as they work hard. Throughout the United States’ existence,

the dream has been away to entrap people of color into believing something that is never going

to happen no matter how hard they try. Ta- Nehisi Coates, an award-winning writer, agrees with

the notation that the dream creates a sense of false hope for anyone that is not considered

‘White.’ In his book Between the World and Me, he writes a letter to his son explaining all the

injustice that African American bodies have faced throughout the history of the United States.

He uses the term “dreamers” to refer to the people that believe in the American Dream

hopelessly. While the “dreamers” believe hopelessly in an idea that they can never truly embrace

they are turning a blind eye to what is really happening in the United States and the world. In

order to improve the reality of these “dreamers”, they have to wake up from the dream that they

are currently in by creating changes in government and embracing their own history learning

which will lead them to confront the reality that they living in.
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The black body has been pillaged and enslaved throughout the history of the United

States which will not let it truly embrace the dream. From the beginning of this country, the

Black body has been brought here for one sole purpose and that was to attend to the needs of the

Whites. Coates mentions a person that really impacted his life and whose life was taken away too

early. This person was Prince Jones. Jones had everything that any dreamer could have dreamt

of. Prince was lucky enough to have a mother who also had an education and helped him get

whatever he wanted or needed. Prince had always had a prestigious education which allowed

him to be able to get almost anything he wanted. Although he had everything a White person had

his life was still taken because of the color of his skin. Coates describes this as an acting of

“losing your body” as being killed and being taken from the world that had promised everything

to dreamer. Many dreamers have a notion that if they are able to achieve the dream they will be

able to go on with their lives as if they were White. In reality, people with authority have

stereotypes engraved in their brains, that people with darker pigment in their skin are bad people

and that all of them are the same. The black body has been heavily stereotyped and viewed with

a negative connotation which will not let it truly embrace the dream. Violence has kept people of

color from achieving the dream and they need to wake up from the dream to be able to face the

reality that their bodies can be taken at any given moment.

Furthermore, the justice system of the United States is corrupt and it alienates the Black

body. There are many examples of unjust killings which many authority figures do not get in

trouble for and some of those examples are Eric Garner, John Crawford and many more The

system that is in place in the United States helps protect the ones that help enforce its laws

although some of the actions that these authorities do are criminal. Police brutality has become

an important issue in today’s society. The justice system needs to be more aware of what its
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enforcers are doing because many of the people that they have killed and left on the streets were

innocent people. There are no repercussions for officers or anyone in authority even with

tremendous support for the victim. Coates informs his readers that “The destroyers will rarely be

held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions”(9). Coates mentions this because he has

seen first hand with Prince Jones that an innocent person's life can be taken away from an

aggressor in authority. These aggressors are backed up by they system that is viewed highly and

is supposed to judge everyone fairly. If the system is not changed soon innocent people just like

Prince Jones are still going to be killed. The Black body hardly ever wins any of the cases that

they are fighting for or they will not even get that far before they are stopped. People need to

wake up from this dream that the government is going to protect them because in reality the

government only looks out for itself. The dream cripples the black mind from seeing that the

corrupt system in play can take their body.

Moreover, education in the United States indoctrinates black students to not question

authority which in return does not allow them to be able to reach the dream. Schools in poor

areas students are expected to follow the rules or to be punished. While in schools in affluent

areas the students are expected and allowed to question authority and are not punished for it.

Coates agrees when he writes, “…and while I couldn’t crunch the numbers or plumb the history

back then, I sensed that the fear that marked West Baltimore could not be explained by the

schools. Schools did not reveal truths, they concealed them. Perhaps they must be burned away

so that the heart of this thing might be known” (26–27). Coates is demonstrating that if public

education provided Black students with the proper curriculum and full historical teachings that

they will be able to rebel in way that the schools could not contain them. Schools want to be able

to control the Black body so that they can later in return place them back into the jobs that are
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considered undesirable. For change to occur in the education in place students need to start

voicing their opinions for what they truly want. In doing so, these dreamers can be woken up

from the dream that is holding them back.

Likewise, schools do not provide adequate curriculum for the Black community. When

schools do not provide sufficient curriculum for the Black community many of them end up

going back to the streets. The Black body is endangered in both places but schools provide a

better outlet for them to express their emotions. According to Coates, “ I came to see the streets

and the schools as the arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while

the other enjoyed its implicit sanction” (33). Coates’ point here is that schools are the same or in

some cases even worse than the streets. Schools limit the learning of Black individuals by only

giving them a few options in which they can learn. Many students do not succeed because the

schools do not cater to the Black community and their needs. The curriculum that schools use in

these areas are very standardized and do not let Black students question what they have learned.

Black students need to be at the same level at which their White counterparts are so that they can

become successful members of society. At the moment, Schools only provide a false hope for

Black students because they are not given the same curriculum at their white counterparts.

The dream has caused unnecessary unjust treatment towards the Black body since its

creation. Although the dream of the United States was for everyone to be equal under the law it

has excluded and continues to exclude the Black body but also any body of color. The dream

keeps people of color in an unconscious state but the reality of today’s world is that treatment of

people has not truly changed. In order for people to be woken up from this misleading dream,

many laws and other systems in place need to be dramatically changed. In doing so this country

can become the great land that it was meant to be.

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Work Cited

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Spiegel & Grau, 2015.