Ta-Nehisi Coates: Letter to my son

Son I want to talk to you about racism. The racism of Shark week.

Last Sunday the host of a popular news show asked me what it meant to be a black man and to be afraid of the water. The host was broadcasting from Washington, D.C., and I was seated in a remote studio on the Far West Side of Manhattan. A satellite closed the miles between us, but no machinery could close the gap between her world and the world for which I had been summoned to speak. When the host asked me about going to the beach, her face faded from the screen, and was replaced by a scroll of words, written by me earlier that week.

The host read these words for the audience, and when she finished she turned to the subject of the beach, although she did not mention it specifically I knew that she thought I was afraid of sharks. Specifically Great White Sharks. Now I ask myself what is so “Great” about Great White Sharks? Is it because they are white? They are the only ones you ever hear about. There are program after program about them. Let’s face it. Gangbangers in Chicago kill more people in a week than sharks have done in the past thirty years! Why aren’t there programs about the “Great Black Gang Bangers?”

Aren’t there any Great Black Sharks? The only ones I can find are some bogus fresh water Chinese bitches that are more like Karp than Sharks. How is it that all of the sharks off the coast of Africa are white? Did those nasty ass white sharks enslave them? Wipe them out. Rape them until they bred out the blackness. You know there had to be some miscegenation genocide bullshit going on.

Son we have to demand our due. Shark week cannot just be about the “Great White Shark.” That is just flat out racist. We need to tell them that black people are not afraid of the water. We are not afraid of no damn Great White Shark. We have to demand reparations from the Discovery Channel. This cannot stand.