Jelani Cobb’s argument that West was motivated by professuonal jealousy is petty and meanspirited. Coates’s wntire worldview — from his atheistic pessimism to his strong critique of the idea that black and white working poeple can find solidarity on class grounds — goes directly against everything West stands for. Of course he would object to the intellectual who criticizes the very forms of hope that for the basis of West’s politics. Of course he would be skeptical that this vision — which might not be “hopeless,” but is way more cautious of hope than what West believes, because he believes the world can be transformed — has proven so popular among white middle class people. What do you expect him to say?
These two thinkers don’t believe in the same things.
― treeship 2, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 12:43 (six years ago) link
Bad grammar and typos but you get the idea.
― treeship 2, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 12:44 (six years ago) link
Just because you believe in different things you don't have to write so shallow attacks as West did.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 13:05 (six years ago) link
it looks like he just deleted his twitter account?
― k3vin k., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 13:58 (six years ago) link
Yes, he pointed to West, a South African feminist writer and Richard Spencer all disagreeing with him and suggested he didn’t want to be part of the conversation via that medium any more.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 14:01 (six years ago) link
it was a bit of a bad look tbh
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:33 (six years ago) link
not quitting twitter but basically saying: west, this feminist, and richard spencer agree with each other, see ya.
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:34 (six years ago) link
idk seems reasonable to me
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:43 (six years ago) link
if a white supremacist was enthusiastically seconding cornel west's critique of me i'd def quit the internet and possibly burn the bridge behind me
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:44 (six years ago) link
yeah weird that the white nat media-magnet stuck his nose into a disagreement between two prominent black leftists, wonder what's up with that
― goole, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:47 (six years ago) link
my issue is that being like "look richard spencer agrees with west, wow!" you're assuming that Richard Spencer is acting in good faith which he obviously fucking isn't, and you're trying to connect West with Spencer, which whatever you think of West is unfair
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
leaving twitter is pretty much always a good idea, too bad RS is gonna consider this a win
― Simon H., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 18:55 (six years ago) link
getting punched in the face, w/l?
― y'know, LIBS! libertarians, libertines, even liberians and librarians (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:09 (six years ago) link
sorry to chime in on that point only. but come on, the man profits hugely on our indiscipline.
as a rule i think it's best for wp to just kind of read and observe these kinds of disagreements instead of coming out swinging. i mostly feel like i haven't read enough. i don't think the concepts in question are small enough to really boil down to 1 guy vs 1 other guy, whoever you think ought to win.
i will say that @ztsamudzi has been a good follow for the past few days (and generally)
― goole, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:20 (six years ago) link
The argument these last few days has literally been that Coates was suspect because white liberals agreed with him, but Richard Spencer co-signs West and it's no big deal?
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:22 (six years ago) link
i tried, everybody
― goole, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:25 (six years ago) link
frederik profits hugely on your indiscipline
― j., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:26 (six years ago) link
― Frederik B, Tuesday, December 19, 2017 11:22 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
you rival richard spencer for disingenuousness
― khat person (jim in vancouver), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:27 (six years ago) link
The problem isn't that Richard Spencer cosigned Cornel West. The problem is that Cornel West traded scholastic credibility for a cameo in a shitty Matrix movie and has spent a good chunk of the subsequent 20 years cosigning white people who feel they have the right to opine on whether particular black people are black enough.
― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:37 (six years ago) link
there's another guy who lacked scholarly credibility
― j., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:50 (six years ago) link
maybe you've heard of him
― j., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:51 (six years ago) link
a stonemason from athens
spent a good chunk of the subsequent 20 years cosigning white people who feel they have the right to opine on whether particular black people are black enough.― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, December 19, 2017 2:37 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, December 19, 2017 2:37 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
What is this in reference to?
― treeship 2, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:52 (six years ago) link
https://www.singlepayeraction.org/2011/09/19/ralph-nader-cornel-west-unveil-proposal-to-challenge-obama-in-primaries/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibsP6XN2dIo
― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:55 (six years ago) link
For the record, you can 100% criticize Obama's record without calling him an Uncle Tom or cosigning people who do; this is not about "Obama was right" as much as it "white people on the left are quick to decry racism right up until they get to use it themselves"
― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 19:58 (six years ago) link
Did Nader ever apologize for that remark? If he did, I never heard about it.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 20:12 (six years ago) link
of course he didn't, why would he?
― Embalming is a flirty business (DJP), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 20:14 (six years ago) link
He doubled down, if anything.
https://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/nader-defends-obama-slur/
― Simon H., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 20:20 (six years ago) link
not sure if i'm misreading, but my intended snarky point was "rs likely considered that a win too, what an ahole."
― y'know, LIBS! libertarians, libertines, even liberians and librarians (Hunt3r), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 20:25 (six years ago) link
i cant imagine looking at this scenario and thinking coates leaving twitter is some kind of "bad look" ... the fuck?
― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:35 (six years ago) link
^^^
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:43 (six years ago) link
seconding that
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:51 (six years ago) link
did anyone in here already link RL Stephens much more substantive left critique of TNC? it's a more serious thing, not a glib guardian blog post, that i'd hoped somebody with a bigger platform like west might mount:
https://www.viewpointmag.com/2017/05/17/the-birthmark-of-damnation-ta-nehisi-coates-and-the-black-body/
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:57 (six years ago) link
Yeah, that was linked upthread. Frederik didn't find that one very convincing, either.
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:58 (six years ago) link
tbh i didn't find that one convincing either
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 21:59 (six years ago) link
here he is on west for whatever that's worth for passerby
I think the Cornel West riff on Coates is rather shallow, sort of like an interview riff rather than a substantive take on Coates and his work. It's more about West projecting his intersectional line rather than taking up Coates on his own terms.— R.L. Stephens (@RLisDead) December 19, 2017
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:00 (six years ago) link
(its a thread)
yeah this seems to repeat his point which i am probably extremely reductively compressing: tnc is too pessimistic
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:03 (six years ago) link
which imo...idk y'all, is the revolution gonna solve racism
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:04 (six years ago) link
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:05 (six years ago) link
i already regret posting about this at all
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:05 (six years ago) link
i do think there's something to his point about reconstruction reparations being qualitatively distinct from TNC's suggestions in what they have the potential to make possible
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:06 (six years ago) link
I know I'm pulling it, context-free, from a paragraph but:
Because he fails to deeply consider the real, material resistance of the masses, the kind that guided Fannie Lou Hamer, Coates idealizes racism.
I mean
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:07 (six years ago) link
like idk i think RL is onto something in naming that so-called "class based remedies" are necessary but insufficient--but necessary--to root out racism
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:08 (six years ago) link
anyway i don't wanna derail us from our thread locus
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:11 (six years ago) link
hoos look at where you are
check that address bar
― j., Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:12 (six years ago) link
I think we spoke about RL Stephens several times, as he republished that piece a bit. And no, I'm just tired of it, it's always the same critique, no? The absolutely awful thing about the West thing is that he wrote something stupid on twitter, then Coates showed that it was a misread of the very first page of his book, and still then West got The Guardian to publish something just as stupid. What's the point of Coates even trying, at this point 'critiquing' him seems to lead to getting published no matter how awful it is.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:19 (six years ago) link
This tweet:
I think Coates has a muddled view of race and racism, oscillating between essentialist mystification and grounded historical analysis. I think he retreats to interiority and fatalism because he's afraid of *revolution*, of what it would take and what it would mean to win.— R.L. Stephens (@RLisDead) December 19, 2017
It's like, taking these absolutely simple things, which Coates is absolutely entitled to think and say and write, and demand that he does something else. And that is not what being a writer is. And it's so so personal, it's never 'Coates is great, but don't believe that it's the whole truth about racism', it's 'Neoliberal, supporter of American Imperialism, blind to Settler Colonialism', etc.
― Frederik B, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:28 (six years ago) link
You baited and switched there, though--it's one thing to say he mixes history with D&D, which is a question of style, and another to say he muddles history with essentialism, which is a question of the soundness of an argument.
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:34 (six years ago) link
though i say that taking it as read that we'd agree essentialism is a bad move, when maybe we wouldn't
― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, 19 December 2017 22:36 (six years ago) link