Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

*commit to never saying "the white working class". That's not a class.

That aside, reading the piece it occurred to me that I have become less open than I'd like to admit to the kind of critiques he is raising. I think this is partly because during the election it felt like his reasoning was being deployed cynically by people who in reality support neither universal healthcare nor reparations. So I got a bit too dug in.

If white liberals find Ta-Nehisi Coates comforting, they are misreading him. I think tokenization of Coates happens when it does because would-be aesthetes think of him as the Black Writer With Craft. What he says is typically pretty bleak.

But who cares why some imagined white fan you have narcissism of small diff beef with likes Coates? This piece rules.

Sure. Can't forget that it came out only 3 months after Freddie Gray's death & less than a year after Michael Brown's. Christ, and mere weeks after Charleston. But I think there's something to the critique of Coates being very comforting to upper class white liberals who didn't know how to deal with everything going on in our country since Trayvon Martin's death and smartphones exposed the routine abuse & murder of black people by the police that had been going on for decades beforehand & was only now visible in the mainstream. I mean, the long and the short of it is Coates isn't a radical, and LDR & Jacobin & most of leftist twitter are. The complete dismantling of capitalism is the only way to destroy white supremacy to them. I don't buy that, for lack of a better phrase.

― flappy bird, Friday, September 8, 2017 7:26 PM (ten minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ummm I'm with you until you argue ldr and Jacobin are "more radical" than Coates...more radical on whose terms? People are measuring "leftness" on a one dimensional spectrum...I don't know about coates pov on this specifically but the critiques of jacobin et al in Coates work don't inherently suggest a more liberal or moderate approach...

And yes horseshoe otm

As far as I can tell Coates pessimism could as easily reflect a radical revolutionary perspective as a liberal one, is what I meant to say...like sure his big suggestion is reparations which isn't all that radical compared to "revolution" but reparations are at once a serious suggestion (they're obviously deserved) and a symbolic one, because the country in which reparations would ever happen is probably not this one--in which case it might just take something as radical as revolution for reparations to become reality. In which case Coates is much more radical than most of these leftists who are like "it would be good if we were more of a social democracy"

Otm. Ta-Nehisi Coates believes descendants of enslaved people should be cut checks by the federal government. That's radical by American standards, I'd say.

I saw Coates speak right after the case for reparations came out. All these white folks in the audience took for granted that he meant reparations symbolically. And he kept saying, "you don't understand I think (whatever the name of the main dude in that article was) should be cut a check. Tomorrow. A big check."

@D-40
just on the terms of that last statement, that dismantling of capitalism is the only way to destroy white supremacy. afaik Coates does not agree. but you're right, i was being reductive & vague using "radical" like that.

I also remember Terri Gross' interview with Coates in 2015 to be very telling - she brings up an anecdote from the book where Coates was disruptive in one of his high school classes, talked back to the teacher or something. Gross was clearly appalled by that story & couldn't believe Coates was defending it, which I thought was hilarious. She clearly thought talking back to a teacher was never acceptable.

xp

― flappy bird, Friday, September 8, 2017 7:28 PM (fifteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lmao there are so many ppl ive worked with that ive privately celebrated when kids talked backed to them

Clyde Ross is the dude. The main subject of that article.

As far as I can tell Coates pessimism could as easily reflect a radical revolutionary perspective as a liberal one, is what I meant to say...like sure his big suggestion is reparations which isn't all that radical compared to "revolution" but reparations are at once a serious suggestion (they're obviously deserved) and a symbolic one, because the country in which reparations would ever happen is probably not this one--in which case it might just take something as radical as revolution for reparations to become reality. In which case Coates is much more radical than most of these leftists who are like "it would be good if we were more of a social democracy"

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, September 8, 2017 8:46 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

flappy bird, Coates sees capitalism as intertwined with the history of theft of black labor and bodies, so I think he does advocate its dismantling; he just refuses to speak about it in a purely Marxist way. Because of racism.

Maybe "advocate" is the wrong word, as he's more in the business of diagnosis, but American capitalism is definitely poison in his analysis.

A bunch of twitter socialists were in my mentions today for defending the Coates piece, ppl on the "left" are about to start coming for him in bigger ways. Someone was citing this sociologist Vivek chibber whose whole thing is that postcolonial theory has mainly served capitalism & postmodernism gutted the left and that Marxism needs to come back (which is Marxism more or less unaltered by postcolonial studies etc.) I'm just very suspicious of this entire line of thinking

I don't feel suspicious of him per se but there's is defintietly a part of me that is like "hmm, why does The Atlantic of all publications like this so much. What is the appeal of this kind of thinking to the kind of liberal that, let's be real, will never actually stick his neck out for reparations." I don't think the left should be "coming for him" but continue to be wary of the cynical deployment of this kind of rhetoric for the purpose of quashing class analysis without any real underlying commitment to what Coates advocates.

is anyone using TNC's work to "quash" class analysis, though?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/02/13/clinton-in-nevada-not-everything-is-about-an-economic-theory/?utm_term=.f0c274d3292f

ctrl+f "coates" 0 of 0

Read what I wrote again.

okay thats fair

Anecdotally, the On Reparations piece was a) informative on a historical level (even for lefty me, who knew about sundown towns and redlining, but didn't know about a lot of the specifics of much of the rest beyond basic unfairness) and b) helped me talk to racially aggrieved whites who had even less of an idea about how we got to where we are than I did. I support reparations, fwiw. A group of people who have been systemically ripped-off and disenfranchised should always be able to get redress.

People who talk about the white working class and call themselves any kind of socialist/social justice person are internalising a divide placed there by conservative forces. Also, American white people who are working class bristle at being so described because they're all temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Working people need to figure out how to do solidarity or we are fuuuuuuuuucked.

Hilary Clinton otm there, though.

The wider pt is lana del raytheon is not remotely in Coates league not just in terms of writing style but awareness of the conversations happening around this subject

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Friday, 8 September 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You are comparing a piece worked over and edited to a twitter thread written in response a few hours later. In the end this sets up a hierarchy that doesn't go anywhere. Nobody cares that Obama has a brain and wrote his own speeches and the like...the current President has the range of a 12 year old. And on Obama its also fair to point out that his "legacy" (and that's an act of looking back at what was accomplished by the person you voted for) is death and destruction, the mis-handling of the aftermath of the financial crisis, as well as domestic healthcare reform. You don't absolve the white working class (and that's the great work of that TNC piece), equally you can see Obama as part of an elite that didn't do the right things when needed.

Reparation as a suggestion (and I haven't read the piece so going by accounts here, try it and read so later) v much reminds of Piketty's manner of redistribution - nice and all but dead on arrival. You can make the case for it but the people with the wealth and power aren't going to give it up/going to do this thing because they are being beaten in an argument.

I don't think there needs to be this chasm between TNC and the left (but there's room for arguing with each other, via twitter and elsewhere) leading to this weird race to the bottom on what's radical. Room for a whole range of demands that can be worked on the ground over time.

Equally?

'We can admit to this historically accurate depiction of the white working class that is being suppressed and kept out of history books, but equally we must confront this biased thing I read on The Intercept about the first black president. Equality!'

People who talk about the white working class and call themselves any kind of socialist/social justice person are internalising a divide placed there by conservative forces. Also, American white people who are working class bristle at being so described because they're all temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Working people need to figure out how to do solidarity or we are fuuuuuuuuucked.

― kim jong deal (suzy), Saturday, September 9, 2017 2:18 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is true. It needs to just be the "working class." An even better term for this moment is "the 99%" because it speaks to the absurdly unequal gains over the past twenty years of growth and innovation that has somehow left millions desperate and precarious.

"Class" analysis shouldn't be about mythical coal miners. It should be about retail workers and care workers and teachers basically all of us. There are issues on which different identity groups can and should stand together. The opposition of class vs race that is emerging, or has emerged, is a catastrophe and it dooms us to either neoliberal misery or -- what is more likely -- some everlasting right wing nightmare.

joy reid is as insightful as ever

http://www.thedailybeast.com/whats-going-to-happen-when-the-trumpists-realize-the-america-they-yearn-for-is-gone

Nothing in Coates's piece suggests he would disagree with this. He astutely points out that raising the specter of the "white working class" as an identity group repeats the right wing division of white and non-white workers (as suzy also pointed out). But his focus in this piece is not defining a path for the Democrats, he is looking specifically at how race still poisons so much in American life and politics, and what the rise of Donald Trump means to black Americans. It's sort of a parallel conversation. So the piece is urgent and the blind spots he identifies in Bernie, Kristof et al are all true, but the possibility of people using this piece to make some facile argument against universalist redistributive policies is... troubling

Ok that Joy Reid piece is fucked up. There needs to be a middle ground between inflaming the worst passions and resentments of struggling rural whites and taunting them for not pulling their weight economically.

Xp

Treeship repeatedly OTM

One more thing about the Reid piece -- then I'll shut up -- is that college educated whites and rich whites also voted for Trump. The worst thing that can happen is if the Democrats make Trump's election about America's "losers" getting revenge on its "winners." Thaf'a supposed to be how Republicans think.

That's been the standard high-status media-type/pundit/journo reaction since the election, hasn't it? They can't possibly conceive of why anyone would have voted for the guy, so they cast about for reasons why and can only blame those poor folks over there(ones that they never actually talk to, funny that) in that state as why.

You are comparing a piece worked over and edited to a twitter thread written in response a few hours later. In the end this sets up a hierarchy that doesn't go anywhere.

― xyzzzz__

by "this" you mean "twitter", right?

death and destruction, the mis-handling of the aftermath of the financial crisis, as well as domestic healthcare reform.

Fine, point out these faults, but also address the fact that as centrist as Obama may have been on some/many issues, his centrist-Dem Court picks were/are better than Trump's court picks like Gorsuch; his labor law and environmental policies are better than Trump. Trump removed some of the standards re use of drones, so more civilians are getting killed by drones now than before. ICE is worse now than before. One can criticize without doing Lana Del Raytheon false equivalency comparisons.

Anecdotally, the On Reparations piece was a) informative on a historical level (even for lefty me, who knew about sundown towns and redlining, but didn't know about a lot of the specifics of much of the rest beyond basic unfairness) and b) helped me talk to racially aggrieved whites who had even less of an idea about how we got to where we are than I did. I support reparations, fwiw. A group of people who have been systemically ripped-off and disenfranchised should always be able to get redress.

People who talk about the white working class and call themselves any kind of socialist/social justice person are internalising a divide placed there by conservative forces. Also, American white people who are working class bristle at being so described because they're all temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Working people need to figure out how to do solidarity or we are fuuuuuuuuucked.

― kim jong deal (suzy), Saturday, September 9, 2017 1:18 AM (thirteen hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The first part of your post is immediately contradicted by the latter part of it... stop condescending to working class people. It's white people generally who need to get it together, not the working class

Oops I only meant to copy the second paragraph of your post

Reparation as a suggestion (and I haven't read the piece so going by accounts here, try it and read so later) v much reminds of Piketty's manner of redistribution - nice and all but dead on arrival. You can make the case for it but the people with the wealth and power aren't going to give it up/going to do this thing because they are being beaten in an argument.

The notion that socialist redistribution is totally attainable but reparations are pie in the sky nonesense is basically the equivalent of saying "we can figure out class but not race" aka putting class first. How do you not see this

I don't think there needs to be this chasm between TNC and the left (but there's room for arguing with each other, via twitter and elsewhere) leading to this weird race to the bottom on what's radical. Room for a whole range of demands that can be worked on the ground over time.

You say this like "both sides" are guilty of being "more radical than thou" but that's the entire framework of the jacobin left right now..,, that everyone who resists them is "a liberal"

To clarify @Suzy, I 100% agree with:

People who talk about the white working class and call themselves any kind of socialist/social justice person are internalising a divide placed there by conservative forces

But think you complete contradict it two sentences later:

Working people need to figure out how to do solidarity or we are fuuuuuuuuuucked.

D-40, you are arse-over-tit in ALL your responses to my post. Do better.

As TNC writes, more than half of white people across every demographic of age and class voted for [blecch]. This includes people in my family, who do not all necessarily inhabit the same age/education/income brackets as one another. I am also wondering about your choice to single me out, when others here are saying things similar to me. But y'know, wevs.

D-40, you are arse-over-tit in ALL your responses to my post. Do better.

As TNC writes, more than half of white people across every demographic of age and class voted for (ewwwwww). This includes people in my family, who do not all necessarily inhabit the same age/education/income brackets as one another. I am also wondering about your choice to single me out, when others here are saying things similar to me. But y'know, wevs.

(That did need saying twice, manchild)

college educated whites and rich whites also voted for Trump

damn straight. plenty of them did. they were panting after the big tax breaks, deregulation, and other goodies that were supposed to flow forth in abundance from a Republican administration. they may just get them, too.

The fucking word count raffle / dick measuring contest over which of us can admire the problem the most wokefully has got to fucking stop.

It feels like everyone has been turned into the most tiresome crank this past week, it's fucking impossible to wade through any of this shit. I don't mean just ILX, I mean basically all over the goddamn place. Between Hillary's stupid (stupid, stupid) publishing schedule, this Daou idiot and his phenomenally terrible website, and TNC's most erudite ever takedown of everything, I have just about lost hope for anything remotely productive or intelligent to emerge from the muck of self-loathing and, oh, fuck it.

Ideas are bad, people. Don't ever have those. Have pithy scorn instead.

I didn't find LDR's thread particularly pithy esp by twitter standards

I can grasp how to build class solidarity but not racial solidarity

"wokefully" is the ILX word of the day imho

lol I'm not singling you out @suzy I've been making this point throughout the thread.

And I don't know what your personal history with class has to do w anything, I'm just saying "working class people need to get it together" is just reinforcing the same dynamic you claimed to want to dismantle seconds before