Addressing the Issue of Generational Rupture by Ta-Nehisi Coates and James Baldwin

Ta-Nehisi Coates and James Baldwin were born in an age where fear defined survival. The African American community dwelled in fear and wanted to insure that their children did not live in the same fearful environment for the sake of their safety. However, this notion of fear as perceived by the African American people resulted in the creation of an over-protective environment for the upcoming generations. As a result, a generational gap was created, and that particular gap has been going in the black society for ages.

Coates and Baldwin aim to decrease the prevailing generational breach. To strengthen the relationship between the successive generations, Coates rejects the over-protective parenting model and chooses his own parenting path. On the other hand, Baldwin does a work of internal generational repair when he reflects upon his bitter and hatred relationship with his father to undergo a self-realization of his father's parenthood and motive behind his actions.

Before addressing the problem of generational rupture, Coates and Baldwin describe the phenomenon of the creation of that rupture and its process of inheritance. In Between the World and Me, Coates sees the concept of "obsessive love" as "black people love their children with a kind of obsession" (Coates 55). Parents develop a strong obsessive love for their children because they always perceive their children being endangered in this world where there is threat of violence in every street.

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As a result, parents seem to create an over-protective environment for their children. For instance, Coates mentions how protective and strict his family was. Coates explains, "it was normal for all father[s] to reach [for their] belts" when children did not obey them (Coates 25). Coates implies that his upbringing was also in a fearsome and demanding environment. Similarly, in Notes of a Native Son, James Baldwin portrays his relation with his father filled with hate to illustrate the creation of that break between two generations. Baldwin uses the phrase, "outrageously demanding," to express the degree of harshness in his home.

Moreover, the "unabating tension” created when Baldwin's father tried to assist his brothers on their homework clearly suggests generational rift (Baldwin 589). As a result of this environment at home, Baldwin realizes how he "had hardly ever spoken to [his father]" (Baldwin 588). Hence, the fear prevailing in the outer world and streets has resulted in the creation of stringent environment at home. The youth generation previews this cautionary step as an unnecessary intervention into their life and this realization has led to the creation of a generational rift. The generational rift is perpetuated within the African American communities through overprotecting parents.

Coates does not want to be overprotective and be an imposing father like a typical black father and wants his son to be fearless. In this attempt, Coates makes a distinction between "hard love" and "soft love". Coates was raised in an environment with hard love as his parents disciplined with a “fearsome rod" (Coates 48). However, the Mecca gave a sense of how love could be soft. Coates only learned “hard love” from his home as his parents loved him with a degree of overprotectiveness.

This realization motivated Coates to love and care for his son with soft love. "Hard love" brings a lot of responsibilities and compromises ahead of actual love and Coates never wants to make his son feel compromised and gives extra responsibilities. His approach to address his son with soft love genuinely helps to rebuild the relationship of subsequent generations. Coates considers his son as a friend as he shares every moment and struggles of his life with his son. Coates companionship with his son ensures gradual bridging of the differences between two generations, as his son will adopt the same style when he will be a parent in future.

Next, Coates wants his son "to put as much distance between [him] and that blinding fear as possible" (Coates 120). Truly, Coates has seen himself missing out on his childhood and a part of youth because of fear. He does not want this image to be reflected upon his son. As a result, he wants his son to be away from the fear as much as possible. Coates admires his son and he sees his son venturing towards the path of fearlessness. When Coates takes his son for a visit to a preschool, his son ran to join those "running, jumping and tumbling" children without any anxiety and fear (Coates 45). Coates is happy with his son's courage as those unknown children belonged to a completely different world. Thus, Coates tries to cut off generational rift and to strengthen relationship between two generations by defining a new African-American father child relationship.

Unlike Coates, Baldwin never had a son. However, Baldwin prepares a mindset of generational breach repair when he reflects upon his relations with his father after his father's death. Young Baldwin really did not understand why his father "felt the presence of white people in his home to be a violation” (Baldwin 588). Upon meeting a white person, Baldwin's father looked "ludicrously stiff" and his voice would become “harsh”. However, Baldwin's inquisitiveness to interact outside the black world led a complete difference in thinking between him and his father. Baldwin, in his childhood, wanted to interact with white people which was termed as "sin" by his father (Baldwin 589).

However, Baldwin could understand and empathize with his father's feeling towards white people when he could not hear the repetition of "we don't serve Negroes here," from a white waitress in New Jersey and tried to harm the waitress (Baldwin 594). He realized that his father imposed an over-protective environment to avoid the incidents like this. His father did not want him to carry hatred developed from racism. Moreover, after the death of his father, Baldwin could sense that there was an actual meaning in everything his father did. He found a meaning in the golden lines which his father always preached, "And if it see evil unto you to serve the Lord... we will serve the Lord" (Baldwin 603).

His father was the first generation of the freed slaves and they had a responsibility of acknowledging their god, their ancestors who had gone over 250 years of slavery. His father's bitterness meant to preserve the legacy of their ancestors. In the end, Baldwin could realize his father's acknowledgement towards the generation of slaves. This realization, in turn, made Baldwin to continue his father's legacy by acknowledging his father's generation. Thus, Baldwin could internally repair the generational gap by finding a meaning in his father's bitterness.

In closing, Coates rejects to apply a typical relation between a black father and a son in his case and tries to encourage his son to become fearless. Baldwin undergoes a change in his feeling about his father's perception after his father's death. Thus, both writers are seeking to decrease the generational breach. However, Coates effort for strengthening the relationship between two generations can be visualized actively when he tries to reconfigure his relationship with his son.

On the other hand, Baldwin effort is passive as he cannot remodel his relationship with his dead father. He can just repair the relation between his father and him in his mind and he does so in the end. Also, Coates makes a use of two generation pairs in this book. Using his own relationship with his father as a reference, he improvises his relation with his son. In contrast, Baldwin mentions only about his father generation and his generation. In the end, both authors address the same problem using different approach.

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