The Slobbering Worship Of The Racist Worldview Of Ta-Nahisi Coates
He is most remarkable for being able to find anti-black sentiment in everything short of an 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper, and in doing that, is just seething with anti-whiteness.
In The Atlantic, in a thoughtful long read, Kyle Smith writes:
Coates repeatedly returns to an incident in which his son, at age four, was shoved on an escalator on the Upper West Side by a woman who said, "Come on." Coates reacted angrily, which is understandable, but he also pushed another man who took the woman's side, which is not. To Coates, this was the same old story: slavery. "Someone had invoked their right over the body of my son," he writes. Coates stands 6' 4" and no doubt did not appear in the moment as the sagacious soul beloved to New York Times readers, possibly because he was screaming his lungs out, though the vague language makes it hard to say ("I spoke to this woman, and my words were hot with all of the moment and all of my history").Such an incident would upset any father. But Coates evidently overreacted because of an unquenchable need to find racism, an eagerness to assume the absolute worst of people at all times, even when there is no evidence for it. Or does he think white New Yorkers never shove other white New Yorkers? A couple of years ago, I was walking to work on West 48th Street when a black man stopped me. I thought he might be seeking directions, but when he instead commenced a tale of woe, no doubt with an eye toward asking for spare change, I continued on my journey. Half a block later, he ran up behind me and shoved me, not gently, in the chest with both hands. "The next time you IGNORE me, I'm going to beat the shit out of you!" he cried. I realized he could have done great harm to me in a few seconds. Shaken, I hurried off to work, wishing I had eyes in the back of my head, but that was the conclusion of the incident.
I quickly forgot all of this and never mentioned the encounter to anyone. The only reason it has arisen in my memory now is that I was trying to think of an experience similar to Coates's at the escalator. There's nothing remarkable about what happened to me. It's the sort of nuisance you learn to forget when you live in New York. Frustrated and impatient people are everywhere. But we don't organize our personalities around minor run-ins, much less intentionally pass along such an obsession to our children or elevate them to world-historical status, as Coates does in a bathetic and dreadfully written paragraph that begins with the hypocrisy of the Founding and its tolerance for slavery, and concludes with that single shove of four-year-old Samori.
More:
Coates's detachment from fact is nothing compared with his moral detachment, however. He says, "my heart was cold" when he watched the Twin Towers burn and collapse. The cops present on September 11 deserved to die because they all shot Prince Jones; firefighters had to go because they are kind of like cops, though if Coates has any examples of firefighters killing black men, he does not supply them. Those office workers guilty of believing themselves to be white obviously had it coming to them. And everyone else who died? Black office workers? Foreigners? Shrug.If you think I'm exaggerating Coates's position, consider this passage:
I could see no difference between the officer who killed Prince Jones and the police who died, or the firefighters who died. They were not human to me. Black, white, or whatever, they were the menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could--with no justification--shatter my body.This is not a man possessed of hard truths, but rather a hard heart. To praise Coates is to condone mass hatred. Coates's college hero, Malcolm X, was widely denounced after he remarked, upon the assassination of John F. Kennedy, that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad." Coates is if anything even more blasé about the destruction of the World Trade Center.
This:
The phrase "twice as good," which Coates says is aspirational advice handed down from black parents to their children, is a frequent and bitter refrain. "No one," he says, "ever told those little white children, with their tricycles, to be twice as good. I imagined their parents telling them to take twice as much." Take twice as much of what? Coates is absolutely right about white Manhattan parents, though. They certainly do not push their kids to be twice as good. They push them to be ten times as good. They urge them through summer arts-tennis-chess camps, rain cello lessons on them until their fingers bleed, and regard anything less than admission to Harvard Law School as failure. Just as Coates so often sees things that are not there, he misses the things that are so widely noticed as to become cliché.
via @WalterOlson
There's a little but important flub at the beginning: Kyle Smith's article is in Commentary.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/hard-untruths-ta-nehisi-coates/
Imagine if it were in The Atlantic...
BG at November 18, 2015 6:18 AM
Even the "8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper" is racist because it's WHITE paper...
EarlW at November 18, 2015 6:34 AM
I too was about to express some amazement that The Atlantic would publish this, since Coates is a demigod there. But yes... we see here all of the traits of tribalism. Only the people who are exactly like me are worthy of existence; everyone else is The Other and must be destroyed. And then there's the histrionic purple prose that Coates frequently engages in; it amazes me that anyone reads such schlock.
Cousin Dave at November 18, 2015 6:44 AM
EarlW beat me to it...
I'm willing to pony up some money so that Coates can move to another country, if he finds this one so odious. I understand Cuba is lovely this time of year. And he's probably OK with their form of government as well.
Same deal as the other special snowflakes: you march to the US consulate and renounce your US citizenship and become a Cuban citizen.
Just don't tell him there's a racial divide in that Communist utopia...
I R A Darth Aggie at November 18, 2015 7:32 AM
There are a lot of angry people out there and it is sad to see them encouraged and in this idolized.
Bob in Texas at November 18, 2015 7:34 AM
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/antiracism-our-flawed-new-religion.html
Antiracism, Our Flawed New Religion
John McWhorter
Opposition to racism used to be a political stance. Now it has every marking of a religion, with both good and deleterious effects on American society.
...
For example, Ta-Nehisi Coates, now anointed as James Baldwin’s heir by Toni Morrison, is formally classified as a celebrated writer. However, the particulars of his reception in our moment reveal that Coates is, in the Naciremian sense, a priest. Coates is “revered,” as New York magazine aptly puts it, as someone gifted at phrasing, repeating, and crafting artful variations upon points that are considered crucial—that is, scripture. Specifically, Coates is celebrated as the writer who most aptly expresses the scripture that America’s past was built on racism and that racism still permeates the national fabric.
This became especially clear last year with the rapturous reception of Coates’s essay, “The Case for Reparations.” ...
jerry at November 18, 2015 9:07 AM
sigh; some folks have to hang onto their bitterness. Because without it they have nothing else going for them.
charles at November 18, 2015 11:54 AM
"Specifically, Coates is celebrated as the writer who most aptly expresses the scripture that America’s past was built on racism and that racism still permeates the national fabric."
Yep, and like all other overblown shaming rhetoric, it fails to realize that it is self-defeating, to wit: According to the philosophy, us white folks have racism embedded in every cell, every fiber of our being, and there is nothing we can ever do to improve in any meaningful way. So, since we are condemned and have no hope of salvation away... why should we just do whatever we want? We're going to hell anyway, so we may as well enjoy the ride. If the goal is to persuade us, it completely fails.
Cousin Dave at November 18, 2015 2:58 PM
Expanding on that:
The inability of grievance mongers to admit there has been progress in alleviating their particular grievance hurts their cause.
Racism might still be a major factor in today's society (I have my doubts that it's as ubiquitous as folks like Coates claim), but we're light years ahead of where we ere in the 1950s. Same with sexism.
By not (or only grudgingly) admitting any progress, the grievance mongers leave the targets of their ire feeling that there will never be enough progress to satisfy the upset, so why bother?
We elected a black president and the hue and cry over racism got louder and more strident (#blacklivesmatter, Mizzou, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, etc.). The argument over immigration got louder and more strident.
The debate over the [nonexistent] wage gap has taken center stage, accompanied by demands that we elect a woman president. Why should we, especially if she does for gender relations what Obama has done for race relations?
The grievance industry has only gotten louder and shriller in its demands for amelioration of what is a demonstrably lessening proliferation of discrimination and acts of various -isms.
When one demand is met, it is replaced by ten demands - presented by an ever angrier crowd.
It's time to stop appeasing the grievance industry.
Conan the Grammarian at November 18, 2015 4:58 PM
ahead of where we ere in the 1950s
nope
according to Oba Mao, the United States (maybe united states?) has racism in its DNA.
so there
but then again, Oba Mao talks about "American values".
Stinky the Clown at November 18, 2015 5:13 PM
The real benefit to race relations in electing Obama was it's highlighting that the grievance industry can never be satisfied and the lessening of white guild. They rely on white guilt to fund and promote their agenda. When the whites stop feeling guilty they lose all power.
If a nation with a black president, AG, and 48 representatives is irredeemably racist against blacks then someone needs to tell those blacks to stop oppressing the blacks.
Ben at November 19, 2015 6:20 AM
Was his son standing on the walking side of the escalator? I've seen people get very upset about that - race notwithstanding. Chicago public transit even has signs indicated "Stand Right, Walk Left."
"Come on" hardly seems like a racial epithet or even something someone would say to demean another's race - rather something someone might say when exasperated with another, regardless of race or gender.
Methinks motives are being read into this by Coates that were not present at the original incident.
Still, shoving a four-year-old is just rude.
Conan the Grammarian at November 19, 2015 1:53 PM
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