Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

Well, yeah.

srsly why do i continue be astonished at this schoolyard shit

come armageddon

a Marxist critique of Coates on Counterpunch (yes, I know exactly how this will be received here)

After reading Street's essay a second time, I realized he and Coates have much in common, which is why he's so upset. Or maybe he wants a Macarthur Grant too.

Phil, you question TNC's motivations yet Paul Street includes the following paragraph:

Yes, he does. There is a lot about Street's piece I don't like. (I am, after all, not a Marxist.) But it's a fact that Coates lives in Elitemedialand now. He's written for The Atlantic about how uncomfortable that used to make him, and about learning the rules of that world. He's clearly learned them now - the people he cites, and the people he views as worth arguing with, all come from that world. So having someone shout "You ain't hardcore!" at him from the back of the crowd seems valid, and broadly supportable, to me. Even though, again, I think a lot of what Coates has to say is true.

is there another writer who is this difficult to disagree with without being shouted down or worse?

worse?

Instead of this shit again, can't we discuss the great things that Coates actually writes, and then have Morbs and Kevin move their shit to unperson's thread?

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S05E05/650565.jpg?b64lines=SSBMRUFWRQogTVlTRUxGIE9QRU4gVE8gV0VER0lFUywKIFdFVCBXSUxMSUVTLCBPUiBFVkVOIFRIRQogRFJFQURFRCBSRUFSIEFETUlSQUwu

why don't you choke on your shit, lobotomized DarRYL

Treeship, when a writer constructs an argument, and you just say 'I don't think' then don't complain if the only response you get is being shouted down. You bring nothing to the table.

worse?

― I Love You, Fancybear (symsymsym), Tuesday, September 19, 2017 1:20 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i guess nothing "worse" happens, but criticisms of coates are prone to extraordinarily uncharitable interpretations in ilxland

How about this great paragraph?

"The focus on one subsector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind of theater at work in which Trump’s presidency is pawned off as a product of the white working class as opposed to a product of an entire whiteness that includes the very authors doing the pawning. The motive is clear: escapism. To accept that the bloody heirloom remains potent even now, some five decades after Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down on a Memphis balcony—even after a black president; indeed, strengthened by the fact of that black president—is to accept that racism remains, as it has since 1776, at the heart of this country’s political life. The idea of acceptance frustrates the left. The left would much rather have a discussion about class struggles, which might entice the white working masses, instead of about the racist struggles that those same masses have historically been the agents and beneficiaries of. Moreover, to accept that whiteness brought us Donald Trump is to accept whiteness as an existential danger to the country and the world. But if the broad and remarkable white support for Donald Trump can be reduced to the righteous anger of a noble class of smallville firefighters and evangelicals, mocked by Brooklyn hipsters and womanist professors into voting against their interests, then the threat of racism and whiteness, the threat of the heirloom, can be dismissed. Consciences can be eased; no deeper existential reckoning is required."

Note the use of 'whiteness'. Crucial abstraction, he is not blaming 'all white people' he is blaming 'an entire whiteness'. The way this distinction is being elided is really telling. I've seen a apt criticism, that this is an abstraction, but that is basically failing to understand the genre Coates is working in - literary criticism. And you can of course say that you dislike that kind of writing, but it does not make him wrong.

a great historical injustice xp

I *am* a Marxist but I didn't like the personal attack angle of some of that piece (several xps)

Took til September but ilx is starting to hum again

It's what it isn't humming that matters

Hi5

but that is basically failing to understand the genre Coates is working in - literary criticism.

That's not what Coates is working in.

that is basically failing to understand the genre Coates is working in - literary criticism.

Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm tapping out.

Frederik may turn the board into a ghost town yet

Daneness

I *am* a Marxist

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, September 19, 2017 11:28 AM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Je suis un ILXist

Oh, fuck, I meant essayism. On the other hand, it got unperson to tap out, so mission accomplished.

always happy to distribute lols according to need

On the other hand, it got unperson to tap out, so mission accomplished.

Oh, I'll still engage with sane people, just not you, you ESL bonehead.

it's not like the rest of us are going to forget that you said this stupid ass shit:

more aimed at shoring up Coates' own position in the media elite than offering any serious critique of American society as it actually exists.

x-post: You write that as if that isn't still a big plus for me. Do you really think anyone here wants to 'engage' with you?

Fred it generally doesn't end well when you start into a rage spiral like this and make it personal and I'm being friendly here mayne

Anyways, back to Coates. Remember how he wrote about the 'Dreamers' in BTWAM? The policeman who killed his friend, he was black. It's not a purely black/white thing, it's who buys into the dream of whiteness, and who does not. And he constantly shows how part of buying into whiteness is obscuring the power of whiteness. That's one of the things Paul Street gets wrong, he just mentions stuff white people has does, as if that was enough. He never questions if it has put a dent in the power of whiteness (it clearly has not) because that is not important to him. White power isn't. White people is. And while that might seem humanistic, Coates looks at it in reverse, because white power is what allows for black people to be killed with no repercussions. Because, as Coates convincingly shows, 'whiteness' is constructed in opposition to blackness, and therefore requires the subjugation of blackness.

a great historical injustice xp

― I Love You, Fancybear (symsymsym),

alright, so that's not what i was saying. i don't care if me or k3v or unperson -- who doesn't like me -- is attacked. but i think that the demand for totally uncritical acquiescence to coates' writing is kind of like a demand for non-engagement and i find it.... odd and somewhat condescending toward coates, whose wriitng i often enjoy

i don't know what's behind it. i don't think coates' writing necessarily supports some kind of "status quo" moralistic politics, making it popular among non-radicals, as the counterpunch article suggests. i don't think that. but i don't really get it. there is no writer who i would try to protect from analysis the way people seem to do with coates.

like either fred or deej ctr+f'd the packer response for the word "intersectional" and said that since that word didn't appear he could be safely dismissed. what kind of a way to read is that

It was me, except it wasn't what I said. At all.

And come on, you seriously don't have any idea what the dynamic is here? No clue? Care to make a guess?

man, my takeaway came at the perfect moment

It be the only worthwhile takeaway from this thread I'd say

Fred keep up the good fight you're 100% right

xp it has to do with the fact that coates is talking about urgent issues in a powerful and public way and people don't want the discussion to be sidelined. i get that. but i also think that his writing won't be able to have a real-life impact if it just gets reified and people aren't allowed to actually read it.

Well maybe 98% I don't entirely get what you were going for w the literary criticism thing but yes more right than the ppl responding to you

Thanks D-40 and I don't get what that meant either. A mistake, got distracted.

alright, so that's not what i was saying. i don't care if me or k3v or unperson -- who doesn't like me -- is attacked. but i think that the demand for totally uncritical acquiescence to coates' writing is kind of like a demand for non-engagement and i find it.... odd and somewhat condescending toward coates, whose wriitng i often enjoy

― Treeship, Tuesday, September 19, 2017 12:56 PM (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No one is asking for uncritical acquiescence just that the "criticisms" show some understanding of the scope of what's actually being argued, which so far none really have. Coates isn't the only person making these arguments, nor is his version of it the definitive one (although it's arguably the most persuasively written and inarguably the most well known) but people arent really even engaging w the bigger ideas here. That counterpunch article was half "not all white leftists" (cue mordy whining about "twitter arguments")

I think the criticism that Coates narrowly / selectively defines what leftism is is a fair one but it's indicative of a much broader problem that falls outside the piece. there are virtually no actual visible leftists on staff in TV or in major print outlets, which I don't believe is an accurate reflection of the political makeup of america

it really is wild to me that my measured, (imo, at least) thoughtful, and very mild criticism of a writer i greatly admire has triggered such passionate backlash. i'm feeling generous recently so i won't say that the response is *stupid*, but it definitely borders on incurious and imo is reflective of the way we (and i include myself in this) tend to engage in discussion in the twitter era. there is a tendency to view certain figures, and their work, as not merely part of the larger discussion but as actual avatars for an entire belief system. like queens on a chessboard these must be protected at any cost; to make a single concession or find flaw in an argument is apparently to capitulate completely to the other side. this is magnified because coates is at the top of his class. i don't think this is healthy, and tbh i respectfully refuse to be a part of it, at least as much as i can control.

i understand how my criticisms of coates' recent piece can be viewed as shaped by my white privilege. i acknowledge that the ease with which i can separate my very real emotional response to (and agreement with) the article's main point from my qualms about the shaky use of statistics in many ways reflects my status as someone who has not had to experience the brunt of the horrors of white supremacy. but truth and evidence matter to me; my patients depend on my ability to use evidence and understand the literature in order to do my job correctly. and i happen to be very good at that. i am simply not going to ignore what i feel are important questions i have about a particular piece of work or idea because my opinion might be unpopular. and i really, truly promise that the sorts of responses i've gotten in this thread don't bother me. i've got pretty thick skin.

(i havent read the counterpunch article and don't really plan to btw)

basically regarding this meta issue i agree with treeship

I understand, k3vin, but a doctor's slipshod use of evidence may result in the severe injury if not death of a patient; there are a range of interpretations to data but saving the patient is the priority, as I interpret it. Writing doesn't quite work that way. Reasonable people can disagree about what Coates should have emphasized, but at best it's going to get clicks on the internet and a way to spend an afternoon for the rest of us.

To me, it comes down to this: Coates is highlighting dire problems in the US, but a lot of the criticism regarding his article is essentially saying "Yes, but maybe you should shift your lens to this other issue." This feels particularly bad because we are at a point in time where there are constant calls spanning the entire political spectrum to shift focus away from problems of racial injustice.

If I could be directed to some leftists who disagree that systemic/structuring antiblack racism is a thing that would be neat cause this view is supposedly widespread

Some of them seem to be in this thread.

Following that, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an essay about it recently, you could try to read that, Simon.