Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

When you're at the bottom, there's nowhere to go but up?

That's how I felt when I finished Williamson.

That there is some question-begging going on there — whether “white supremacy” really describes a significant motive force in American public life —

lol fuck this guy

Williamson, for those who don't remember, fought Jonathan Bernstein over the question of Democratic racism; the guy could not accept that "Democrats" and "liberals" were not synonymous for most of the twentieth century.

that Williamson article is the ultimate "don't read the comments" piece.

Now you tell me...

ha ha yeah, I got to the 2nd one--which was like maybe we should just let black people mug white people to collect their reparations--and I was out.

Doesn't even come close to the wall of shit under this.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/23/the-case-for-reparations?

the huge backlash from racist reactionaries that we're seeing just bolsters coates's argument that the end of slavery and jim crow hardly saw the end to institutional racism in the US.

they are kind of making his argument while trying to rebut his argument

Otoh this is in fact what a conversation about race looks like in America.

I hope TNC doesn't take time refuting a bunch of lame responses--I feel like he should turn this article into a documentary.

agreed

Jun 12, 2014 • 7:00 pm
Just days before the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, will sit down with Jeffrey Goldberg to discuss Coates’ provocative June cover story making the case for reparations.

At 6th & I synagogue in DC

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/05/27/coates_reparations_response_free_market_economist_says_discrimination_made.html

Oh Tyler Cowen & your free market libertarian economics

With the caveat that yes, Fredrik DeBoer is, as they say, a gaping asshole, there's a lot of truth here.

I can't decide about that DeBoer piece. I recognize what he's talking about. On the other hand, Coates consciously employs a tragic/poetic voice ... to talk about extremely tragic shit. We're not supposed to be affected by that?

Basically (I swear to god I'm not trolling) isn't this a kind of tone policing? If this supposed reverence for Coates is leading to bad thought, bad writing and bad action, talk about that.

I agree. The feeling I get from reading Coates is like that I get from reading good creative non-fiction, rather than from standard articles I happen to think are otm.

Basically (I swear to god I'm not trolling) isn't this a kind of tone policing?

Kinda, but like you said, the phenomenon is clearly there - the minute Coates publishes anything, even a half-thought-out blog entry, the pundit/journalist community pitches forward on their faces as one, chanting "We're not worthy!" And in a way it keeps people from honestly engaging with what he's talking about; they can just say, "He's a genius - go read what he has to say" and feel no obligation to actually contribute to a discussion themselves.

I don't think Coates is as clear a thinker, or as good a writer, as he's being sold as being. He's very hammer-meet-nail in his thinking (all white supremacy, all the time), and whether I agree with the substance of what he has to say or not, I think John McWhorter is a better prose stylist. And I find Coates' newfound humorlessness (and it is newfound; his blog used to offer pop-cultural digressions, but those are apparently beneath him now; he's too busy shoving America's history under our noses to admit to ever having any fun) tiresome. The temptation to despair at the misery of human existence is always there, and very strong (assuming you give a flying fuck about humanity in the aggregate, which I mostly don't). But you gotta lighten up sometime. I'd like to see The Atlantic assign him a profile of some utterly innocuous celebrity, just to see what he'd do with it.

The cover story was more interesting as history and reporting than an argument for reparations. These days he often treats his blog as a place to post thoughts on the books he's reading, and although he sometimes doesn't finish those reviews he'll often provoke me into rereading. Do you remember when he wrote about Tony Judt's Postwar? When I read it a few years ago I filed it away; TNC made me reread the bits about West Germany and the collapse of Communism. Which is to say: I don't mind the approach! It's what a blog is for, even a blog attached and sponsored by a magazine.

"he's too busy shoving America's history under our noses to admit to ever having any fun" sounds like criticism I've read at NRO

Coates is kind of a hero to me because he's the one journalist I can think of who, rather than complain about inaccessible academics, actually goes out to read them and bring their insights into public debate. I think that's a vital public service.

i think most ppl are saying "read this" and not really engaging w/ the material bc a) coates is obv reading more than 98% of other 'pundits' and therefore b) the chattering class is not educated or well-read enough to respond.

re humourlessness, does the world really need more pop culture speculation? coates is fulfilling a vital function that neither av club nor chait or touching on.

"he's too busy shoving America's history under our noses to admit to ever having any fun"

^ What other writer is doing this, though? It's not like this is getting taught in schools

And it's not like there isn't a point to it either; the whole point is that this is still happening now in the present, which I'm not surprised you missed, Phil

But you gotta lighten up sometime. I'd like to see The Atlantic assign him a profile of some utterly innocuous celebrity, just to see what he'd do with it.

― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), Wednesday, June 4, 2014 11:20 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh yuck.

i think most ppl are saying "read this" and not really engaging w/ the material bc a) coates is obv reading more than 98% of other 'pundits' and therefore b) the chattering class is not educated or well-read enough to respond.

Exactly. It's almost like he's doing his fucking job.

the uncritical adoration is just a faux-humble backhanded admission of how shitty they are at theirs.

"Humorless" suggests didacticism or hectoring, and TNC's tone is almost too gentle; he's cogitating in print.

Yeah, my first reaction to that blog post was "or maybe people are doing this because TNC is a really, really good writer"

"he's too busy shoving America's history under our noses to admit to ever having any fun" sounds like criticism I've read at NRO

Am I supposed to be cowed by this comparison? I'm just saying, humorless people are fucking boring, whether I agree with them or not. If you can't laugh at human existence, tragic and fucked as it is, I don't understand how your mind works.

Coates is kind of a hero to me because he's the one journalist I can think of who, rather than complain about inaccessible academics, actually goes out to read them and bring their insights into public debate. I think that's a vital public service.

This is absolutely true. The more you read, the better your writing will be.

re humourlessness, does the world really need more pop culture speculation? coates is fulfilling a vital function that neither av club nor chait or touching on.

Agreed, but in this case, the abandonment of lighter, pop-cultural subjects feels like image-burnishing.

the only hyperbole i've seen surrounding coates are suggestions that he's james baldwin's equal which prompts a 'not yet he ain't'. beyond that the hyperbole is understandable, here's a high profile writer who doesn't indulge in bullshit or fluff, whose thinkpieces actually contain and prompt thought, and the rarity of it is going to prompt hyperbole just as the novelty of someone actually taking inequality seriously enough to do the work analysing it has prompted hyperbole about piketty (which even if the book does live up to the hype, i haven't read it - has anyone on ilx? - he's still a social scientist, he's still just an economist). when someone hits for the cycle you can be pretty damn sure it's gonna make sportscenter. seriously think progress live tweets the emmy red carpet, the new republic does celeb journalism, what type of drooling moron thinks we need more of that? that the problem w/ american journalism now is it's too serious and it needs to lighten up? maybe you make that argument if you're a hack pop culture writer for a living and that's what you have to tell yrself so you don't open a vein but plz don't try to sell whatever lousy deal you've made w/ the devil to waste yr life as taking some moral high ground or resisting the temptation to 'despair at the misery of human existence'.

Ha, so journalists who don't do what Coates does are wasting their lives, now? And if Coates' writing prompts exactly zero real-world change (which is the effect I predict), has he too wasted his life?

For a sec I thought Phil was going to be arguing in good faith but I guess this is where I check out

I'm just saying, humorless people are fucking boring, whether I agree with them or not. If you can't laugh at human existence, tragic and fucked as it is, I don't understand how your mind works.

I've had quite a few macabre chuckles reading the quotes by racists and bureaucrats and TNC's transitions, so I don't know what you're talking about. The last thing a black man writing about the realities of black life since Reconstruction needs to be told by non-black writers is that he needs to laugh at human existence more often or write about Parquet Courts.

but DO go on.

Yeah Phil you're basically saying "I want to be able to laugh at the ongoing discrimination and abjection faced by black America, not have to actually learn about it"

I mean I guess it's nice being able to want to laugh at something you don't have to go through on a daily basis, eh?

Ha, so journalists who don't do what Coates does are wasting their lives, now? yes

And if Coates' writing prompts exactly zero real-world change (which is the effect I predict), has he too wasted his life? no

it would be one thing if coates was just churning out article after article about identity + social justice issues - then it would make sense to tell him to chill. but he's writing about actual structural inequalities that impact real human beings (and not fake twitterppl). anyway doesn't humorless perfectly sum up freddie?

Wow you never stop grinding that axe huh

it's important to point out what matters. i think phil might be confusing the worthlessness of 'why i date white women' w/ the immense value provided by thoroughly examining redlining in american real estate history and explaining it for a broad audience

are there any other ilx hacks who've not only declared that the celeb fluff journalism is not only as valid as serious journalism but in fact matters more, that mary hart > if stone? there's lex and now phil and i'm just gonna feel safe assuming perpetua feels this way. who else? jsarge maybe? seriously phil go back to porn, you were serving humanity more doing a2m in the back of a van.

balls otm

Yeah Phil you're basically saying "I want to be able to laugh at the ongoing discrimination and abjection faced by black America, not have to actually learn about it"

this right here. it's not his job to entertain anyone. he's trying to write critically about difficult social issues and the idea that the piece is 'humorless' and would better serve its purpose if it was 'entertaining' to any audience is pretty offensive/dismissive.

i mean, the idea that he should cater to some external taste or soften his rhetoric to appeal to a wider audience pretty well validates a lot of his themes.

Coates has written for years about sports, about Wu-Tang, about all kinds of things; just because he currently is not addressing such subjects (and is responding to David Frum and to others re his cover story) hardly turns him into a humorless boring person

In my opinion, Coates's prose at it's worst delves into a sort of portentious cliche with phrases like "national reckoning" and "spiritual renewal." I think the strength of his case ends up overstated by many and his thinking at its fuzziest when he points out that the Department of Justice brought action against Wells Fargo in 2010, eliding the difference between private actors and public ones. That's an example, overall though I agree with the sentiment that the article was more interesting as history than as an actual case for reparations.

Nonetheless, obviously, Coates is a very good writer. It's not that reactions to him seem too solemn or that Coates himself is too solemn. It's just that much of his white audience seems to get an unseemly thrill out of the whole thing. Like they get this tingly feeling inside when he exposes them to injustices they've been blind to and that experience proves to be more cathartic than motivating. They read him for a fix they crave. And once the fix is acquired, nothing more is needed. Recognizing Coates and responding in that way is enough to make them good people, the right kind of people, and nothing more is necessary. So on twitter, they invite their other white friends to get their fix, and so on. And people just feel good about themselves.

the uncritical adoration is just a faux-humble backhanded admission of how shitty they are at theirs.

― ryan, Wednesday, June 4, 2014 9:42 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

feel a bit of this posting a link with 'yes' on fb, as a not-writer who wishes he knew enough to talk all the white people he knows past 'i was poor too'.

speaking of which, is there a good treatment of how the cotton economy shaped or affected the west? we have this pioneer mythos that wants to bypass and exempt itself from slavery but 1) didn't slavery some kind of originating tonal or psychological effect on migration at the very least, maybe more vis-a-vis the economy and 2) it obviously has the effect today of doing its part to help the whole country ignore the problem.

what i'd really like to read is a historical treatment of pioneerism that looks past the trope of rugged individualism.

xp on the contrary, i think the awkwardness comes out of "here's a strong voice telling the truth in an era where it's getting harder and harder to pat ourselves on the back" and "what have we done about it? nothing".

It's just that much of his white audience seems to get an unseemly thrill out of the whole thing. Like they get this tingly feeling inside when he exposes them to injustices they've been blind to and that experience proves to be more cathartic than motivating. They read him for a fix they crave. And once the fix is acquired, nothing more is needed. Recognizing Coates and responding in that way is enough to make them good people, the right kind of people, and nothing more is necessary. So on twitter, they invite their other white friends to get their fix, and so on. And people just feel good about themselves.

jfc, presuming much? you sure seem to know a lot about this large group of people

white people read the internet like THIS

You're not willing to concede that there may be at the least a grain of truth in what he's saying?

I don't think it has anything in particular to do with Coates' writing, v little of what's written on the internet actually motivates anybody to do anything

+ you gotta get a lot less vague if you want to move past 'projection' to 'grain of truth'