Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

The reaction from Ta-nehisi Coates himself has been to point out this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-black-mans-stark-visceral-experience-of-racism/2015/07/09/68a3fca6-23d7-11e5-b72c-2b7d516e1e0e_story.html

Thomas Chatterton Williams reviewed the book before, he came to a very different conclusion

that's what i said in my post. they were implying that he changed his conclusion because of some award they were both up for going to coates

coates is open about the fact that he's not saying anything new; that's not his project.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 26 November 2015 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Demanding the new is StillAdvance's 'project'.

x-post: Yeah I know. Wrote it before I saw your post, decided not to edit. Sorry.

"Demanding the new is StillAdvance's 'project'."

do you have anything to say of your own other than simply pointing out perceived flaws in other people's opinions?

P/amazing to read these two reviews. The work that quote from Baldwin is doing. Although this:

It is hard, perhaps impossible, not to be enraptured by his righteous and — unlike with Baldwin — loveless indignation.

Points to how he can flip from one really positive to another really negative review. Obviously people change their views all the time but this is a strange (to say the least) thing to do and not explain. I wonder if the LRB editors knew of this earlier review?

StillAdvance - Just pointing out perceived flaws these days.

that lrb pieces strikes me as thoughtful and serious-minded enough that it deserves a better response than "he's just jealous." it doesnt really matter if he changed his mind or even why (and the earlier review seems to be hedging, in any case).

i wouldn't say 'masturbatory' and haven't read the book, but he can be stuffy. TNC's writerliest writing reminds me of Aimless posts

I see the key charge as being that TNC is overly determinist & thus fully committed to a particular idea of victimhood which has its own problems. whether or not a kernel or more of that is in the WP review is not so interesting imo

xxpost, sounding affectedly 'writerly' (perhaps the result of trying to write like baldwin, which IIRC is what he was advised to do) is not the same as simply sounding like you are enjoying writing

xp
you could swap "particular idea of victimhood" for "pessimism" there; I think the crucial part is the question of the role & possibility of individual freedom and agency in a racist society. I've not read the book so I'm curious what those who have think

it doesnt really matter if he changed his mind or even why

ok but not to even acknowledge this?

The LRB review is good.

He is pretty nuanced on this question. Which is why this second review is such horseshit. Of course there is agency, but it's constrained. It's why Coates' father beats him up for every little infraction, because Coates has to act perfectly in order to succeed, every little misstep can be his last. And even then, there's no promise of reward. Death might strike from The People Who Belive They Are White at anytime, as shown in the story of Prince Jones, who was killed by a (black) plain-clothes cop who followed him to his house, and shot when confronted.

This whole debate is so stupid. It's always either/or. Say that black people might be constrained by white supremacy, all of a sudden you're taking away every part of their agency. Nope.

there was a review in a conservative journal (was it 'commentary'?) that made the same critique in re. 'agency'

Frederik, I usually don't pull the identity card, but do you think it's reasonable for you to call an African American writer's views on the nuances of black agency in racist American society "horseshit"? This LRB writer is not making a right wing claim that everything is somehow the "fault" of black people versus white society. He is taking issue with how TNC frames this question, and the political possibilities that might be closed off by this framing (which is becoming de rigeur in leftist circles, in part owing to Coates' influence.) I think the writer has a right to raise these questions - he certainly has a bigger stake in the game than white liberals.

The way you describe the piece it sounds like it's Bill Cosby or some shit. It's not. At all.

yeah, i agree. he's coming at it from a broadly 'left' perspective. i just noted that there was a review from a right-wing perspective that made a broadly similar critique, but in that case it was part of chastising 'the black community' for a lack of moral agency, which is a mistake that willingham would not make.

i know you weren't addressing me but i figured i'd clarify my last post or rather its purpose

I found the LRB review really interesting. TNC isn't the voice of black America. He's one voice - a very powerful and articulate one but his take is pessimistic, informed by his experiences and, as he has said, his lack of religious faith. There should be thoughtful critiques of that position. As a white reader it's not for me to pick sides but I'm glad there's a debate. It's precisely because TNC is such an influential revered voice at the moment that there should be countervailing views.

"He is pretty nuanced on this question. Which is why this second review is such horseshit. Of course there is agency, but it's constrained. It's why Coates' father beats him up for every little infraction, because Coates has to act perfectly in order to succeed, every little misstep can be his last. And even then, there's no promise of reward. Death might strike from The People Who Belive They Are White at anytime, as shown in the story of Prince Jones, who was killed by a (black) plain-clothes cop who followed him to his house, and shot when confronted."

this reminds of the chris rock anecdote, when he tries to justify black parents hitting their kids.

but i think there is a kind of damaged, cynical romanticism in giving white supremacy all the power. note that i am not denying that white supremacy exists. but i am saying that white supremacy does not control everything, seductive as that notion might seem.

"It's precisely because TNC is such an influential revered voice at the moment that there should be countervailing views."

and the reasons why he might be revered also should be interrogated, by all sides.

See this is the thing. StillAdvance writes:

'but i think there is a kind of damaged, cynical romanticism in giving white supremacy all the power. note that i am not denying that white supremacy exists. but i am saying that white supremacy does not control everything, seductive as that notion might seem.'

Right after I write that Ta-nehisi Coates doesn't give white supremacy all the power. I say that there is agency but it's constrained, according to Coates, and therefore of course white supremacy doesn't control everything.

And Treeship: This is why the review is horseshit. Not because it's some reactionary Cosby-shit (though I might call it that, if 'Cosby' wasn't the new Goodwin's law in this kind of discussion) but because it misrepresents Coates' book. It's simply factually wrong. It doesn't 'nuance' anything, it misleads. Coates does not say what Chatterton Williams says he says.

Btw, how many of you saying the review seems 'thoughtful' and 'nuanced' has read the book it purportedly criticizes?

The review isn't a "takedown" of the book. It doesn't disagree with the idea of structural racism. It's mostly critical of the implications TNC traces from his macro social analysis for day to day life as an African American. All of this is relevant to Chatterton Williams because he is a young African American man. You're egregiously misrepresenting his point of view out of fealty to TNC and it's weird.

Have you read TNC's book?

there's room for a thoughtful critique of coates. the lrb piece isn't it.

Coates doesn’t realise that his disproportionate reaction – ‘my words were hot with all of the moment and all of my history’ – is bound to be seen as objectionable to those ‘standing nearby’.

This is an egregious misreading. The whole section is rich with a reflexive immediate reaction, self-consciousness, retrospective understanding, and view from inside and outside of the self at once. That's sort of the point of the section and much else in the book -- to act in part as a coming-of-age story of his own consciousness and understanding of the world. Those sorts of gaps between immediate gut response and the bigger picture, as well as how the world is seen through the eyes of others -- and how he is seen -- are a central theme of the book.

Ditto when he denounces coates' description of paris as fantasy -- that's precisely the point of the passage he quotes, and coates says as much explicitly. it isn't a nuanced understanding of paris, but the rush of emotion of being somewhere different with different cultures and different problems. and it doesn't deepen any sense of injury -- it captures a feeling of freedom.

The article just doesn't understand the text at a basic level.

And then you have the total non-sequiters like this:

"The capacity to find gratification in making a choice – even if it’s the wrong one – is glossed over. Yet even Coates admits these pleasures:"

So which is it is this glossed over, or does coates discuss it in the passage the article goes on to quote? You can't have it both ways, but the article tries to, within two adjacent sentences no less.

good profile in NYT Mag last week of Coates' editor (who i didn't know was the Jackson of NY's McNally-Jackson bookstore)

he has pretty boring taste in rap :(

so will you when you're 40 : /

ahem

Wu Tang fan Coates or Jackson?

Jackson had accompanied Jay Z and Beyoncé to the music festival in search of material for what would become ‘‘Decoded,’’ a book-length exegesis of Jay Z’s lyrics, written by Jay Z himself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/magazine/how-chris-jackson-is-building-a-black-literary-movement.html

@tanehisicoates Feb 26
Way late, but finally saw "Creed." Amazing. Black af. Healed racist legacy of Rocky films, without dismantling Rocky legacy.

https://twitter.com/verilymag/status/722795195364990976

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgfiZnmWIAABGX9.jpg

omg cornel is gonna be so jealous

omg

pls 2 not constrict urself pretty white lady

I don't know. It makes me a little uncomfortable to see burning candles near all that fabric .

they seem to have taken that down

they seem to have taken that down

Why? This is America - everyone has an equal right to be turned into a vacuous meme.

My President Was Black. A history of the first African American White House—and of what came next

this is an amazing piece

heh

Coates on Obama, Trump, atheism, and becoming the guy “white people read to show they know something.”

Saw this response piece to Coates article https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/12/obamas-failure-to-mitigate-americas-foreclosure-crisis/510485/

He says: Obama the candidate ran on allowing bankruptcy judges to cut balances on primary mortgages; Obama’s administration actively whipped against the policy. This statement includes a link to another article that notes in part:

After narrowly passing the House, cramdown was defeated when 12 Democrats joined Republicans to vote against it.

Many Democrats in Congress said they saw this as the death knell for the modification program, which would now have to rely on the cooperation of banks and other mortgage servicers to help homeowners.

So while it is true that Geithner, Summers and others including Obama did not push hard for the "cramdown" law (that would allow Bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages downward to prevent folks from getting foreclosed upon), even if they had it is not clear that they would have won over those 12 Dems.

Sometimes when the party leader signals that something is important, then party members have a harder time voting against it

https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/05/17/the-birthmark-of-damnation-ta-nehisi-coates-and-the-black-body/

paging fred

was already posted on the rolling race thread tho I'm sure freddy b won't mind bumping his gums about it again itt

ah my bad for doubling up

it's hard to keep up!

I read something like that when the book came out. At one point iirc the commenter / reviewer actually compared TNC to a nihilist, for similar reasons i.e. arguing that American racism is an immutable constant.

If you read the book as philosophy then maybe I guess the argument could hold up? But taken literally as a letter to his son, the violence-against-blacks-in-our-country-is-basically-the-same-as-gravity is the way ALL parents talk about danger to their children. If you cross the street without looking YOU WILL DIE HORRIBLY. I mean maybe most of us don't get into the morbid details but that's how it's crystallized in your mind and why you can't let the point go without repeated acknowledgement. Being a dad is impossible!

I don't think TNC wrote the book as a logical argument for why blacks in the USA should give up on equality. I haven't seen any signal in his other projects or appearances that he holds that position. He wrote it as a parent trying to be honest to his kids about what they're up against, with a lot of literary flourish, as he does.

^^^

Reading it any other way is straight-up idiotic, particularly if you are also a black American.

yeah but personally i love bad faith essays!