It’s urgent for Black people to gain a widespread awareness of an unethical nation that’s designed to work against our favor. Between the World and Me isn’t just a soliloquy between father and son anymore. While some actors in the film visibly read passages from their MacBook screens and cue cards, others memorized their segments, capturing the book’s essence in dramatized fashion. Taking a cue from James Baldwin’s 1963 double-essay book The Fire Next Time, Between the World and Me is just as piercing when recited as a choreopoem as it is in book form - maybe more so. Coates was driven to warn his young son, Samori, about the social implications of being a Black person in America: “This is your country, this is your world and you must find some way to live within the all of it.” During Barack Obama’s two-term presidency, Coates was disgruntled with Obama’s contradiction between providing solace to white people through his political rhetoric, while numerous cases of police brutality against Black people went viral. The visuals are a nod to Coates’ West Baltimore upbringing, while the cast acts as a Greek chorus for the author’s revelation about the nation’s racialized dysfunction. Through this grim reality, Between the World and Me also features captivating depictions of Black life, from its radical collage title sequence to the delicate montages of families and inner-city murals. 10th, Black Americans experience the highest rate of COVID-19 mortality - about three times higher than white or Asians populations. Rife with award-winning actors (Jharrel Jerome, Mahershala Ali) and those who are long overdue for an Emmy Award ( This Is Us star Susan Kelechi Watson, Mj Rodriquez), the film centers the Black plight and the disproportionate injustices we face. A one-off film rather than a recurring series, Between the World and Me is HBO’s latest addition to the palette. In the past five years, HBO has made numerous efforts to amplify Black visibility on Insecure, Random Acts of Flyness, Lovecraft Country, and A Black Lady Sketch Show. Stage director and producer Kamilah Forbes, who adapted Between the World and Me for the Apollo Theatre in 2018, returns to take the reins as director for this confrontational, impressionistic perspective of Black America. Intentionally debuting after the 2020 election, HBO’s adaptation has a myriad of acclaimed Black thespians and activists reciting segments of the book in various intimate settings. But social-distancing precautions didn’t discourage journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates from reintroducing his 2015 culture-shifting nonfiction book Between the World and Me through a visual lens. As coronavirus rates have surged, production for numerous upcoming TV shows and films has been halted worldwide.

Prince jones between the world and me