Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

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

You're still misquoting, just STOP ALREADY.

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

??????

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

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), 9. september 2017 22:22 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That might say more about you than about the two problems?

That seemed a bit accusatory. I definitely don't mean to imply that you're racist or something. Just that I can see several historical instances where a lot of racial solidarity was build.

Good work everyone ok let's pick it up again here tomorrow

I just wanted to point out that Joy Reid's piece is making exactly the same types of points as Coates' essay and the people criticizing it appear to have skim read for pull quotes they could misunderstand so they could put the uppity negress with the fancy degree back in her place.

IMO, That's what everyone has been doing to everyone else since Her tweeted about Verrit and it's al devolved into a sticky miasma of being completely pissed off at all the wrong people.

I must confess to having zero to say about the following un-useful things:

Verrit
Chapo Trap House
Relitigating 2016
Hillary/Bernie

....because I've had it with Left-on-Left aggro, since there are larger battles to pursue and a more relevant enemy to set myself against.

i suppose Teh Discourse was bad this week, but I've been p heartened by signs that irl politics are getting past 2016; Harris and Warren jumping on Bernie single payer and the left cutting Harris slack for having been a prosecutor as she adopts more left policies. like this guy ('which city does Adam Johnson live in again? NYC har har') was one of the worst sanctimonious Bernie ppl during the primary and,

she's acting like someone who a) can read the writing on the wall RE dem base b) not hung up on intraleft 2016 relitigation c) will win nom https://t.co/OKgyXmWKSB

— Adam H. Johnson (@adamjohnsonNYC) September 9, 2017

imo for a black woman to beat trump and enact single payer is basically the only path to redemption left for America, after Trump

i like RL's writing on other stuff (and his DSA plank is sure better than the one that's all white dudes lol) but his critiques of TNC seem like some shit you would write in an comparative lit MA. fuck outta here with that imo. literary theory in left infighting operationalized as bitchmode petty sniping seems dated, from a time when the left had way less potential for power, like 80s or 90s...but the rest of his writing is much more substantive about left strategy & big picture policy:

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/housing-poverty-freddie-gray-racism-black-panther-party-baltimore

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/06/walter-scott-police-killing-michael-slager-race-class

yeah I have noticed a significant easing up on Harris this week

https://theoutline.com/post/2213/the-progressive-potential-of-kamala-harris

it's good

imo for a black woman to beat trump and enact single payer is basically the only path to redemption left for America, after Trump

It would be a beautiful thing.

I've had it with Left-on-Left aggro, since there are larger battles to pursue and a more relevant enemy

otm. too much 'lefty discourse' comes off as nerds jockeying with other nerds to sit at the cool kids' table imho

medicare for all. free public college tuition. reparations for african-americans fucked over for centuries. pay for it with tax hikes on trustafarians. rich people don't deserve their cool kid table. their parents bought them seats there, and seriously, fuck all of them. call me crazy but i feel a lot less sympathy for some poor little rich person who might have to pay higher taxes than i do for a poor kid who has no chance because the US is pretty much a neo-feudal pyramid scheme at this point

medicare for all. free public college tuition. reparations for african-americans fucked over for centuries. pay for it with tax hikes on trustafarians. rich people don't deserve their cool kid table

you just summed up the demands of the vast majority of left twitter, short of "nationalize the major tech companies" and "abolish the prison-industrial complex"

It's amazing how the centrists are in denial about the necessity of all those things.

Anyone who claims to GAF about race issues wants big changes to crime and punishment - private prisons are enslavement.

http://www.theroot.com/study-a-picture-of-a-black-person-can-anger-trump-supp-1802753905

I love Michael Harriot

once again i feel like this is missing the point dramatically

https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/09/11/idylls-of-the-liberal-the-american-dreams-of-mark-lilla-and-ta-nehisi-coates/

tapped out of that real early, it's awfully written

yeah, the author sets up this extended Games of Thrones/fantasy metaphor and then says someone should tell TNC this isn't 5th century Europe as though he was the one spinning this bullshit.

I tapped out when I saw how long it was tbh

I read the opening paragraphs and thought "this person understands neither metaphor nor the arguments he is attempting to refute".

yeah, the author sets up this extended Games of Thrones/fantasy metaphor and then says someone should tell TNC this isn't 5th century Europe as though he was the one spinning this bullshit.

tapped out halfway thru this description

A little OT, but I'm increasingly annoyed that Mark Lilla's stupid ideas are being treated by many people as "what liberals think". I suspect there's a very large portion of liberals that don't wish to he associated with him in any way.

another reason I didn't get into this piece is I earnestly have no fucking idea who Mark Lilla is

He's the guy leading the charge for liberals to drop identity politics

This article is trying to chart a path between Coates and lilla but the comparison between the two is insanely facile. I have yet to read a piece by a socialist writer as convincing or persuasive as Coates's. Part of why his writing is so good is because he's just better at putting together history in a transparently ideological way, and these goofs are writing really mediocre responses. I don't know that Coates is 100% right but I can't help but feel like people are tweeting that these essays are great less because they are than because they need someone to reaffirm their overly optimistic world views

well and also they don't like talking about race because it makes them feel funny in a bad way and not in a 'dick and rap jokes on a podcast' way

From the little I've read that response is not as good as that twitter thread but Coates isn't strictly a socialist writer (its probably why he is so good lol), the focus is much narrower, for one.

I saw another reponse piece earlier that seemed to focus on the supposed attack by Coates on Sanders but he does understand the thin line that politicians in these systems have to walk:

One can, to some extent, understand politicians’ embracing a self-serving identity politics. Candidates for high office, such as Sanders, have to cobble together a coalition. The white working class is seen, understandably, as a large cache of potential votes, and capturing these votes requires eliding uncomfortable truths.

Actions -- the way a candidate votes in office, what they do when they get there -- is ultimately what counts. If Obama could've stood for re-election and beaten Trump he would've funded weapons for Saudi. He wouldn't have made as big a deal of it, and perhaps not visited in the way Trump did, but the outcomes for Yemen would've been the same.

So in this hypothetical situation, how would you vote?

Or, more importantly, is there a viable candidate that doesn't have some disqualifying factor that would keep you from voting for them?

Obama in that scenario. TNC would clearly vote Sanders (and I suppose voted for Hilary).

My point is more around presidency, white or black, has its many faults, all to be fought against.

Obama visited Saudi Arabia four times, btw. I don't know why I think that is kinda funny, but I do.

well and also they don't like talking about race because it makes them feel funny in a bad way and not in a 'dick and rap jokes on a podcast' way

Yeah, that dick and rap jokes podcast definitely never ever talks about race.

Those three white guys are so good on race

My point is more around presidency, white or black, has its many faults, all to be fought against.

yes, every president has done more than their share of questionable things, they should be called out whenever they can be. But the fact remains, whatever bad things happened on Obama's watch, he also did a lot of good, and in many very specific and directed ways, the Trump admin has focused on rolling back many of those good things, and it is an undeniable fact that POC get hurt the most in the process. To me, that's a big part of Coates' argument, and enumerating all of Obama's flaws does not in any way contradict that argument or really address it at all.

this thread is comforting.

talking honestly about race is not the same as what those guys and their acolytes do.