Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

totes

and perfectly timed for thanksgiving-relative time! u_u

^^^ yes

wow you guys are like a 100% sure youre going to have to discuss the n word at thanksgiving im depressed now

about 90 percent sure

am spending Thanksgiving at the relative at whose house we had a raucous, cheerful debate last June about his disappointment that he couldn't use the n-word.

fuck

team tnc http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/black-pathology-and-the-closing-of-the-progressive-mind/284523/

Good as far as it goes, but the limitation of the late 19th/early 20th Century progressive mindset re residue and social hygiene is a familiar one, and what about the point made by some other African-American commentators, re actual residue:internalized expectations of failure? Also, being "too black" for acceptance by some, "too light/white" by others? He might well deal with such internalization elsewhere, but since he brought up the residue here, seems to beg the question a bit.

a fairly familiar point or topic, I meant.

what is... culture?

A summary, sort of:

http://gawker.com/public-intellectual-deathmatch-ta-nehisi-coates-jona-1554487845

that article is embarrassing ("Lookit what these eggheads are doing!").

ugh it even ends with an 'oh snap' gif

And yet somehow the comments manage to outdo it

Filed to:SHADE

the dumbest motherfuckers in the world file copy for gawker media on the weekends. i don't know if they only pay the weekend warriors w/ hardee's coupons and hence this is the level of talent they attract or what but it's some embarrassing shit.

looking forward to the gawker summation of the Derrida/Searle debate.

balls, you are making me think i could write some shit for gawker, im gonna pitch some ideas brb

Good as far as it goes, but the limitation of the late 19th/early 20th Century progressive mindset re residue and social hygiene is a familiar one, and what about the point made by some other African-American commentators, re actual residue:internalized expectations of failure? Also, being "too black" for acceptance by some, "too light/white" by others? He might well deal with such internalization elsewhere, but since he brought up the residue here, seems to beg the question a bit.

― dow, Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh there's also a point that "internalized expectations" have to do with ppl who aren't black can get away with acting like they deserve things (and then getting those things) but if you look a different way and you try the same shit you get smacked the fuck down

Oppression might well produce a culture of failure. It might also produce a warrior spirit and a deep commitment to attaining the very things which had been so often withheld from you. There is no need for theorizing. The answers are knowable.So this use of "also" had me expecting he was going to talk about both kinds of effect. And "residue" can be residual elements of white oppression's values internalized, so not like he has to reject the word itself as symptom of arrested development progressive sanctimony. I think it's a useful word, a reminder of the way bad shit seeps in and sticks around for the quiet moments. I gotta keep up with his blog, though.

coates debate w/ chait has been pretty fascinating, though admittedly more to read coates' pieces, which are really exceptional. especially coates' most recent one. chait's just aren't that powerful.

and i'm not going to read that gawker piece. gawker's already on my list of 1,000,000,000,000 places to avoid on the internet

If only there were someone on this board who worked at or ran gawker and could elucidate things

Chait can't hide his "I really want Democrats to win" subtext. He's a smarter Chuck Todd.

this:

(Chait goes on, but it's all very substantial and dense and thoughtful and that's not really what we're here for, is it?)

speaks volumes, really (i.e. we don't want to be substantial, dense or thoughtful around these parts)

what if it meant something else tho makes u think

its kinda a shame w this debate that chait is so wrong and operating from such a position of weakness cause he can be often pretty lucid but i feel like he just walked right into coats wheelhouse w/out thinking things through too much, like obvs coats is better anyway

Maybe Chait will learn something from Coates latest response (on the 30th).

Oops, never mind, he did not

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/coates-disagrees-with-jonathan-chait-so-do-i.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/black-culture-and-progressivism/360362

Clare Sestanovitch discussion of the Chait and Coates debate and of others who weighed in on it

Damn, this thing had legs
http://www.culturalfront.org/2014/04/the-coverage-of-ta-nehisi-coates-on.html

that's almost funny

Oh, have not read come of those conservative takes

some

max can you please also ban "oh shit," that gif, and any cheeky discussion of a serious debate as though it were a rap battle, particularly one about race?

"Yeah. He went there." Actually just make sure this guy doesn't write anything else for gawker.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/11/a-hammock-in-kentucky/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1

This Krugman v Williamson in NRO article relates

Just read conservative NY Times columnist Ross Douthat re Coates and Chait. What conservatives have learned from the debate, and from the Wiliamson NRO article on Appalachia, is to call all poor unemployed people getting food stamps, no matter their race or ethnic origin, lazy and lacking in morals and ethics.

lol otm. Being part of the shiftless poor is a class thing, not a race thing man.

Take your time. Read it all.

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

wow. really tremendous piece.

co-sign. great read.

yeah, thinking of sending this to a friend from abroad who's just moved to the states and seems a bit befuddled by race-in-america stuff.

I hope this gets a lot of attention. It certainly deserves it.

http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2014/05/so-thats-just-one-of-my-losses/371396/

I hope this gets a lot of attention. It certainly deserves it.

― Survivalist Compound Row (B.L.A.M.), Thursday, May 22, 2014 2:14 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def blowing up on my twitter fwiw

Andrew Golis ‏@agolis 12s
The chartbeat data on Ta-Nehisi's reparations piece is giving me hope for humanity. Wow.

^atlantic managment

there's so much i like about the piece. the research is thorough, the original reporting is fantastic - i think Coates' case is really compelling. there was one argument in the middle of the piece that i couldn't totally get on board with (about patriotism a la carte), and i thought the piece could've used a more decisive conclusion (i was initially confused about where the rest of the article was - it ended so abruptly), but those are pretty minor quibbles and this is one of my favorite things i've ever read in the Atlantic. i had never heard this story either, so i was grateful that he included it:

Among the Jews of Israel, reparations provoked violent and venomous reactions ranging from denunciation to assassination plots. On January 7, 1952, as the Knesset—the Israeli parliament—convened to discuss the prospect of a reparations agreement with West Germany, Menachem Begin, the future prime minister of Israel, stood in front of a large crowd, inveighing against the country that had plundered the lives, labor, and property of his people. Begin claimed that all Germans were Nazis and guilty of murder. His condemnations then spread to his own young state. He urged the crowd to stop paying taxes and claimed that the nascent Israeli nation characterized the fight over whether or not to accept reparations as a “war to the death.” When alerted that the police watching the gathering were carrying tear gas, allegedly of German manufacture, Begin yelled, “The same gases that asphyxiated our parents!”