Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

No, you're right - I can find out things elsewhere - so why should anybody bother reading these threads again?

TNC has actually criticized obama to his face (the story starts about 10 paragraphs down):

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/ta-nehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me.html

ok so can we stop talking about that and just dwell on the majesty of

@tanehisicoates
There is your half-a-bar @freddiedeboer You've been asking for it for years.

freddie five years ago

http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/04/09/why-tiger-beatdown-has-jokes-on-it-turns-out-some-motherfucker-had-to-ask-me

http://tigerbeatdown.com/2010/04/11/boners-for-fun-and-profit-the-extent-to-which-you-dont-care-about-boners-revealed

fair to say that tnc let him off easy

Thank you for condescending to share actual stuff --- and it's some convincing stuff too.

(Was that so hard?)

― Vic Perry, Thursday, July 16, 2015 6:39 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you could have actually done your own homework, you fucking dolt

lol vic perry u a dumbass bruh

sorry for posting the west image i just wanted to share a light chuckle i didn't foresee this :(

Look, I have to tell you: your whole enterprise here, the whole long and short of it, appears to be an edifice designed to give you a platform that paws at discourse while denying the possibility of you ever getting called on anything.

★ ★ ★ the internet ★ ★ ★

Dont be mean guys

Freddie is otm there though... but the point of tiger beatdown isn't fostering dialogue with ppl who disagree. Internet writing has other functions

he only gets half a bar. that's as cold as it comes.

freddie was staking out some early 'not all men'/'all lives matter' territory there. he may not have been exactly wrong, but his priorities were . . . misguided

btw has andrew sullivan weighed in yet?

do I have to click on a David Brooks column titled "Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White"

it's kind of Brooks In Excelsis, really breathtaking stuff

ha ha I love that a column titled "Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates" begins "Dear Ta-Nehisi Coates"

'I read this all like a slap'

let's not be too literary then

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB8QtwIwAGoVChMIs7igw7rixgIV1xeSCh3dcwrq&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D55ylhBDysbI&ei=DxypVfP0ENevyATd56nQDg&usg=AFQjCNHxHocaW3V40WZ0uHbzMICXrg_dpA&bvm=bv.98197061,d.aWw

uh oops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55ylhBDysbI

http://fredrikdeboer.com/2015/07/17/to-the-horde/

i am not talking about freddie de boer.

regarding the "bodies" refrain in between the world and me, it's because he wants to ground his discussion of racism in violence. that is the central reality of black life the book is concerned with. yes, this is reminiscent of a way the term "body" was used in the humanities academy 15 years ago, but i don't think it's a stylistic tic, nor do i think it's wrongheaded. i think it works.

and maybe i'm being dim or misunderstanding the criticism upthread, but, like, that is just true. the history of anti-black racism in this country is the story of the brutalization of the black body. that seems so obvious and embarrassing to type out that i think i must be missing something.

i just posted that fdb thing because we were talking about him upthread and now he seems like he walked some of his stuff back

horseshoe otm

I wasn't critiquing TNC's use of "bodies" as much as like, "unpacking" it, and looking at the pitfalls of that linguistic habit in the hands of less capable writers. Basically I agree with drash: equating the self with the body, as Coates does, is a metaphysical fiction the same way equating the self with the mind or the soul is. Coates chooses this ontology bc it fits his political worldview. (I think everyone's philosophical positions are determined by concerns outside philosophy.)

Anyway, I filled up a lot of this thread with that line of thinking - sometimes i forget i'm not getting course credit for ilx posts

might be able to write to the dean to ask for an independent study exception

almost done with the book. beautifully done.

yeah it is wonderful

just finished.

the way he ends with global warming is a terrible letdown.

but there are some amazingly powerful, lyrical passages right before.

whoa - missed that. he ends with global warming? in any case, if found the last couple sentences really powerful - the liquor stores, beauty shops, churches, boarded up houses, and rain coming down in sheets.

http://i.imgur.com/ZRSe7AB.png

and maybe i'm being dim or misunderstanding the criticism upthread, but, like, that is just true. the history of anti-black racism in this country is the story of the brutalization of the black body. that seems so obvious and embarrassing to type out that i think i must be missing something.

― horseshoe, Friday, July 17, 2015 11:25 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

and the black mind, black ppl, there are no minds w/o bodies no bodies w/o minds, its just people, it just feels like a pointlessly pedantic and awkward formulation to me

Right: pointlessly pedantic, awkward --- also pretentious. And doomed: this is a funny historical moment to declare some old school Cartesian dualism. Which, I would note, has not exactly proved to be a great friend to the downtrodden.

regarding the "bodies" refrain in between the world and me, it's because he wants to ground his discussion of racism in violence. that is the central reality of black life the book is concerned with. yes, this is reminiscent of a way the term "body" was used in the humanities academy 15 years ago, but i don't think it's a stylistic tic, nor do i think it's wrongheaded. i think it works.

― horseshoe, Friday, July 17, 2015 10:21 PM (1 week ago)

^^^ I think it's a great rhetorical device.

would probably play better had there not been all those articles about Miley exploiting the black body after that award show

That's right, Miley Cyrus ruined black activism

She was never meant to be a part of Dr. King's dream.

And doomed: this is a funny historical moment to declare some old school Cartesian dualism.

Right, but you dig that's exactly the opposite of what T-NC's doing, right?

and the black mind, black ppl, there are no minds w/o bodies no bodies w/o minds, its just people, it just feels like a pointlessly pedantic and awkward formulation to me

― lag∞n, Monday, July 27, 2015 6:45 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

don't understand how it's pedantic; can't really convince you it's not awkward.

coates's whole point is that to be black in America is to feel disembodied--to not be allowed to feel like a person, feel your mind and body integrated. i agree with him that physical pain inflicts a kind of disembodiment/annihilation of bodily integrity.

It's good that lag∞n is here to tell us how minorities should describe the experience of being a minority in this country

im not telling anyone how they shd talk abt their experience, im talking abt my experience of reading this writing, and while i think tnc is one of the best out there i think his adoption of academic language degrades his writing

its p interesting that this terminology of body to refer to ppl emerged from the academy which is the ultimate mind prioritized over body culture

p entirely predictable, u mean

I don't know, I think Coates's use of "body" echoes its theoretical use in the academy but is not identical to it. It's idiosyncratic and poetic in his usage.

Like part of its purpose is to serve as a metaphor for something inexpressible

you are pretty clearly not into his use of it, but I don't think it's merely theoryspeak.

yeah i mean his usage is prob meant to stick out and be noticed which cld be seen as using a artless form artfully, just the academic focus on lexicon as the the ultimate unit of meaning kinda drives me nuts, also im just not sure abt physical oppression really being more key than physiological, they necessarily always work together, ultimately obvs these are all quibbles of what is a good and important work, and also an indication of how tnc manages to be compelling on all diff levels while writing abt extremely difficult topics

pychological not physiological obvs

surely the talk of 'bodies' reflects 18&19th century discourse's fixation on the physiological; talk of 'monstrous specimens' (e.g. what was written about the hottentot venus), 'hybrids' etc.

qed you are turning mind into body xp

tru

anyway horseshoe interesting points i am reconsidering based on yr conversating