Analysis Of Serious History Was The West Was White By John Coates

345 Words2 Pages
With the narrative weaving between storytelling and social criticism, Coates is able to re-define "history", in a sense, presenting it as the foundation behind certain emotional responses. When he recounts an encounter he had at the mall, where a white woman had pushed his son aside, he wrote, "I turned and spoke to this woman, and my words were hot with all of the moment and all of my history." The use of the word "my" validates the story Coates told earlier of his childhood. History that is considered a credible account of factual happenings becomes a tool that fuels his anger. To him, those were factual events that occurred and thus important. "Serious history was the West, and the West was white," he argues, emphasizing the