Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I really wanted to like this book. I felt like I had to like this book. I am not a black man and my son's are not black so I almost feel like I have no right to dislike this book but I do. I am not going to argue that America has a huge problem with racism and that being black in America is hard. We have a long way to go and lot of changing to do. We have to take a hard look at ourselves and our privileges, especially because, like Coats says, no one thinks they are racist. Yet, what he does with this problem and what he tells his son to do with this problem is a tragedy. On page 98 he tells his son that one man cannot make a difference so basically don't even try. WHAT? What if Malcolm X's father, or MLK's father or Rosa Parks's father had said that to them? Where would our equality movement be today? Though the circumstances have be right for a person to make a difference and in most cases that one person is eventually helped by others, one person can absolutely make a difference. The world is changed by one person a t a time. Look at what Gandhi was able to do. Did he do it alone, well no but the changes were made because he dared to be the one person to try and make a change. So I am sorry, but Coats telling his son that it is the so called white people's responsibility to give up the dream (not everyone's collectively regardless of race) and that one person cant make a difference is short of criminal. This book very eloquently and elegantly poses the problem and then gives up, solves nothing, defines nothing and left this reader very underwhelmed. If I were to write something to my son it would never be to discourage him or let him off the hook in changing this world for the better. And if I were his son reading this I would probably ask what the purpose of this was if not just a memoir and sort of half- hearted introspection.