![]() ![]() Because of the tradition of treating black people as objects or animals whose value lay in their ability to make profit for white people, the very idea of what it means to be black in America is rooted in the constant danger of “losing” one’s body. This theme helps explain how black people came to be treated – both when slavery existed and then beyond into the present-day – as disposable bodies within American society. He urges Samori not to forget “how much they took from us and how they transfigured our very bodies into sugar, tobacco, cotton, and gold,” and notes that by the time of the Civil War, “our stolen bodies were worth four billion dollars.” Coates traces this fragility back to the commodification of black bodies during colonialism and slavery, meaning the way in which black people were turned into objects with a monetary value. ![]() ![]() Coates deals extensively with the theme of black bodies, arguing that “the question of how one should live within a black body… is the question of life.” He shows how racism operates through the control, manipulation, and exploitation of black bodies and the resulting fragility of black bodies within a racist society. ![]()
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