Coates begins the book, a long letter to his son, by describing his experience as a guest on a news program in Washington, DC. The news host presses Coates to explain why he believes that white America was built on looting and violence, to which Coates responds, “American history” (8). Through this letter to his son, Coates explains that the idea of hope in the face of racial violence is futile because it ignores the torture and enslavement on which the United States was founded. He compares the fallacy of white supremacy, and the ways white people are favored under the law as a consequence of it, as a “gorgeous dream” for white people. He asserts that addressing its effects on black communities throughout American history would be like asking white people, who have benefitted from this system, to awaken from this dream (13).

Coates writes to his son Samori when is 15 years old, which is the same age that Eric Garner, a black man, was choked to death by police for selling cigarettes. Coates acknowledges that at age 15, his son now knows that 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot point-blank by police, that 22-year-old John Crawford was killed for browsing a Walmart and picking up a rifle he was considering purchasing, and 19-year-old Renisha McBride was murdered for seeking help after crashing her car.