Considering The message

by liberal japonicus

The previous thread is getting creaky, so I have a separate thread in mind to write after this, but I (and I'm not sure if this is a great idea) am going to put up this thread about Ta-Nehisi Coates' new book, The Message. While the book follows in the footsteps of his book Between the World and Me, with the questions that Coates is always returning to remain 'who am I? And what do I, and should I, represent?'. The book is divided into three sections, but the section that is getting all the attention is his last section that deals with his trip to Palestine and his observations while there. This focus on the last section without understanding how the first two sections tie into it is unfortunate, but not unexpected.

As an example of this, Coates' appearance on CBS and the first observation by Tony Dokoupil (at 1:40), which was

I have to say when I when I read the book I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.

Coates had a much more sympathetic interlocuter in Ali Velish on MSNBC.

Coates also had a long talk with Ezra Klein on Klein's NYT podcast, which had some points of disagreement and again, concentrated on the last section to the exclusion of the other two.

Velish also mentioned Coates' talk with Trevor Noah, which is the most interesting one to me, because, while wrestling with what his identity is, Noah, Coates and Christiana Mbakwe Medina, who was a staff writer for the Daily Show, touch on a lot of interesting points while avoiding the I/P landmines.

To round that out, here is Coates' Daily Show appearance.

There are several other appearances, and I've been able to read a copy. If this were a just world, it would be a useful starting point, the questioning of our selves before trying to adjudicate others, but I think it isn't and we will continue to see the tactical overwhelm the strategic, with the goal of both sides to simply inflict as much pain and suffering on the other side.

Comments

[Donald]

I have only seen clips, but people on the Twitter right are jumping on Coates for something he said in the Trevor Noah interview, which was that he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have taken part in Oct 7 if he were a 20 year old Palestinian in Gaza. Right before that he talked about what Nat Turner did ( killed babies in their cribs.)

His overall point in these interviews ( the issue comes up with Klein as well) is that terrorist methods are wrong and dehumanizing and he was just pointing out that some people succumb to the temptation, but the Twitter right are portraying it as Coates admitting he is a terrorist.

I read the Klein piece straight through. It was worth reading. I have the book, but haven’t read all of it. The attacks on him just show how little people are interested in having honest discussions on this subject.

[Donald]

“ while avoiding the I/P landmines.”

What Coates has been saying lately is that he is trying to make up for not looking into this subject earlier. He is deliberately walking right into the minefield because he feels he had a debt to pay, having used German reparations to Israel as a positive example, without looking into what Israel had done to Palestinians.

One of the entertaining things about his rightwing critics is that I have seen some accuse him of being a black racist, when he makes the point in Klein’s interview that in his view race is a social construct, and one thing he saw in the West Bank was a Black IDF soldier bullying blonde blue- eyed Palestinian children.

[liberal japonicus]

The 'avoiding I/P landmines' wasn't addressed to the totality of what Coates is saying, he's rather bravely walked in there, it was just the content of that particular podcast, which was more about the diaspora.