I think Coates is about to be tossed aside (at best), much in the same way that previous Black scholars and activists did when they started questioning US foreign policy. This is something that is almost never mentioned now, but white liberal support for Martin Luther King Jr. tank when he tried to bring the Civil Rights Movement to the North, specifically Chicago. It was all rainbows and sunshine when he was up against Bull Conner, but to try and defy Mayor Daly? Surely you jest, Dr. King! His mainstream popularity was further diminished when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, something that appalled other civil rights leaders, like Whitney Young. I think that it’s expected and tolerated for a Black writer/activist to criticize American racism, but criticizing US foreign policy is crossing a red line. Having an internationalist and/or working class aspect to Black activism has always been a problem as far as the political establishment is concerned. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Malcom X and King were killed when they started to develop more anti-imperialist and internationalist outlooks. The original BLM leadership was also making connections between Black oppression at home and the oppression of Palestinians abroad. I don’t know what will happen to Coates, but I think his days of being invited to write for The Atlantic, the NYT, WaPo, etc. are over. I’m sure he knows this and is fine with it, but it illustrates how narrow and right-wing the Overton Window is in our “actually existing democracy.”
Thanks for writing, Leah. I find it interesting that you would put Coates in a similar category with MLK, Jr., as I see them as occupying vastly different functions in American society. I would think most people would classify Coates as being in the same general column as James Baldwin.
That said, I was thinking that even that classification would be too narrow. I personally would put Coates in the same category as William Faulkner -- someone highly respected in American letters regardless of racial background. True, he does expound on race issues often; but he's a meistro of many forms: essay, fiction, storyboarding.
I cannot see Faulkner being disrespected to the extent that Coates was by Dokoupil, at least not on the basis of anything he would have written. It would have taken an outside scandal to have anyone deign to treat him in less-than-laudable fashion, much less dent his career.
Coates is being raked over the coals for something he wrote. This, even though his detractors as well as his admirers note that Coates's language is lush and thoughtful and intricate. I haven't read the book, but judging from the reactions of those who have and who detail the nuance and the work that Coates obviously put in, nothing justifies the treatment that he received from Dokoupil. This would be true even had Dokoupil come up with real questions and not regurgitated hasbara talking points. Dokoupil, in that sense, doubly disrespected Coates.
I think your prognostication is a bit too strong. I say this considering the interview circuit that Coates is currently on. He's been on Amanpour & Company, the Daily Show, MSNBC, NPR (I believe), as well as some secondary-tier outlets such as Zeteo and Trevor Noah's outlet. I'm sure he has more planned. He may, as some have said, be "burning through his cachet" or "elite capital" at a high rate, but he has reserve. I think this CBS Mornings hit job may be the biggest frontal attack that he will suffer.
I will say that I think it's just as well that I took a little bit to respond to your reply, as there was movement on the CBS front. First, Dokoupil came in for rebuke from his immediate superiors (a recording of which was leaked to Bari Weiss's _Free Press_; Weiss's infamy stems from Libs of TikTok). They said that his questioning did not rise to CBS's standards. That was all fine and good. But then Dokoupil started getting defenders, one of which was in that CBS editorial meeting, Jan Brewer; another was Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, an otherwise quite respected opinionist on legal matters. But what made a splash yesterday was the fact that Shari Redstone, CEO of Paramount, the parent company of CBS, in an extraordinary top-down intervention said that Dokoupil conducted a fine interview and chastised Dokoupil's immediate superiors. That's remarkable, and dispiriting. I'm considering writing a letter to some of the CBS higher-ups, because it's zany to think that Redstone felt the need to shelter Dokoupil when he clearly violated journalistic ethics and just about every basis of propriety afforded to those of status in American culture.
People wonder about institutional racism. The Marcus column and Redstone's intervention are instances of institutions coming together to protect someone who displayed otherwise rank bias against a well-respected author of color. It is plain.
Thank you for your reply. I know that MLK Jr. and Coates occupy different roles in the intellectual landscape, but I wasn’t sure how to phrase it. I guess they’re both public intellectuals, but King’s writings weren’t his main claim to fame, obviously. In the news articles I’ve read from the 1950s and 1960s, almost every notable Black person who was politically outspoken was described as a “civil rights leader” in some capacity, so make of that what you will.
In any case, I agree that it will be interesting to see if Coates can force Palestinian into regular political discourse in a real way (as opposed to the vague banalities about “both sides” and a fantastical two-state solution). Even Jimmy Carter couldn’t do it, but maybe it will be different with Coates, given his previous ties to elite publications. Carter wasn’t a writer by trade, but if Coates gets cancelled by The Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. it will be more noticeable. The problem is that there is a zone of silence around Israel in general that makes it difficult for ordinary people to get accurate information about what is going on with Palestine. I think the Israeli view that Palestinians don’t exist is a a pervasive in the legacy media, which is why even human interest stories that might humanize Palestinians are so rare.
I only drew the distinction between Coates and MLK, Jr. primarily because the material conditions are different; the cultural moment is different. And, to be honest, being a Gen Xer, I still have not been able to place myself back in that time period of MLK being alive in terms of bringing that moment alive through reading history--it's so distant, it's unimaginable. So that's my mental block that affects that analogy for me. But also, King was shepherding a movement, and I cannot begin to place Coates in that role. He's been very influential as a public intellectual, though. There's that.
To your point about Coates affecting his access to certain circles, it seems from several of his interviews where he's address this possibility he's made peace with that as possible fallout. I think it remains to be seen; though, reading Peter Beinart's brief write-up that preceded his own sit-down with Coates (an interview not available to non-subscribers like me), he stated without qualification that Coates's role in American life will change due to this book. No ifs, ands, or buts. So there's that.
I think things were more fluid when I first posted this essay, before Redstone of Paramount came out and publicly spanked her own executives. I think that's a signal that other sectors of the Establishment should take a pass on Coates and not be afraid to flout standards, ethics and conventions. Sam Seder said Dokoupil violated the general terms of engagement; Redstone seems to be completely changing the terms of engagement, because there's no reason for her to have swerved so fully out of the chain of command. All of that is to say that I think there was a genuine moment where at least part of the cultural zeitgeist could have made a palpable shift, and that likelihood is not as high as it was two days ago. Alas.
Thank you for your reply. I think the term I was looking for that could describe both MLK and Coates was “race man.” It’s rather anachronistic in many ways (as if three or four guys could ever represent the breadth of thought for twelve percent of the population), but I think that’s the best term. Race men didn’t have to shepherd a movement, they just needed to be influential. The problem comes when the race man tried to transcend that by making connections between the Black struggle and other movements, which is a no-go.
The fundamental question is whether the Palestinian struggle can become part of mainstream political discourse. There are some attempts to break through, as Coates demonstrates, but the hostility he’s receiving suggests that it will be an uphill battle. While the anti-apartheid movement wasn’t popular, supporters didn’t face anything like what modern pro-Palestinian protesters are now. Mainstream reporting on Palestine essentially functions as printing/broadcasting press reports from the IDF (CNN, for example, has admitted that all its reporting about Palestine has to be approved by the Tel Aviv office).This genocide and the US’ complicity in it illustrates that we already live in a dystopian society, but since the victims are out of sight and out of mind, we can keep fooling ourselves that we live in a democracy.
Maybe there is a point where we will understand that the extremist who has a book in their backpack is the one who is right and all the “normal” and so called reasonable people are the ones who are wrong. Just because you might be surrounded by people who hold your views, doesn’t mean those views are moral. We get so comfortable in our thinking. There is a certitude that comes with being in lockstep with the majority. It takes courage, maybe desperation, to speak out against the views of the majority.
The thing about Dokoupil's comment about the backpack is that he prefaced that by stripping Coates of all of his accolades. I saw a brief clip of what I'm sure is a longer interview of Coates with Trevor Noah, and Coates told Noah that he wasn't offended by that tack because he doesn't think of the awards as "him". Fair enough, and I understand where he's coming from; but what Dokoupil was doing was reducing him for the audience so that they could see him not as an award-winning and thoughtful author but as a shorn Black man, now attributed with "extremist" ideas. Dokoupil was transforming Coates into a ragtag terrrorist with this rhetorical technique. And it's important that he did this right out of the gate -- he knew he needed to do this.
As for your note about conformity, I've mentioned in earlier essays about the Asch conformity study of the 1950s. This is where one dupe is placed in a group of confederates -- those in on the subterfuge -- and they are as a group made to evaluate the measure of a line. The three lines are clearly longer or shorter than the others; but when the group as a whole declares the wrong line to be the longest, far more often than not the naive person will go along with the group. Asch found that if just one person deviated from consensus that the group will lose its hold, otherwise strengthened by unanimity, over the subject.
Coates is the deviating one, outspoken in his need to state the truth, to be an honest witness. His detractors are concerned, whether consciously or more instinctively, that he will disturb their unanimity and encourage others not only to see the reality in front of them but to report on it, too. That's why we've seen so many quarters slash at Coates this past week. They don't want him to be a herald. But I've seen lots of comments from everyday people saying that they were keen to read his book.
I think Coates will move the needle, and that terrifies some folks.
Yeah, thanks for posting the link! I came across a clip of that a few days ago, and then yesterday YouTube offered it in full, so I watched it then. It’s very thought-provoking, if for no other reason than Coates is interviewed by two people from the African continent. They bring a very non-American perspective that I think really broadens the conversation.
I would encourage contrasting Noah’s interview with, say, Ezra Klein’s interview. (They’re equally lengthy, so I’m not sure how much time people here want to devote to this issue; I personally am fascinated by this whole media moment.) Klein specifically delves into the Palestine-Israel conflict and takes up Dokoupil’s admonition that Coates didn’t spend enough time talking about Israel’s difficulties. Noah and his co-host, on the other hand, spent time exploring the rest of Coates’s book and letting Coates speak about what he was trying to accomplish. It’s remarkable, how different the interviews are.
I will check it out for sure. One thing is that Dokoupil’s intention was to admonish Coates… the result is that more people will now become aware of his work. I confess to not knowing of him at all. Just started listening to The Message. Great book and I love learning about Coats. Obviously he is a great writer! I love that he is getting more attention.
I think Coates is about to be tossed aside (at best), much in the same way that previous Black scholars and activists did when they started questioning US foreign policy. This is something that is almost never mentioned now, but white liberal support for Martin Luther King Jr. tank when he tried to bring the Civil Rights Movement to the North, specifically Chicago. It was all rainbows and sunshine when he was up against Bull Conner, but to try and defy Mayor Daly? Surely you jest, Dr. King! His mainstream popularity was further diminished when he spoke out against the Vietnam War, something that appalled other civil rights leaders, like Whitney Young. I think that it’s expected and tolerated for a Black writer/activist to criticize American racism, but criticizing US foreign policy is crossing a red line. Having an internationalist and/or working class aspect to Black activism has always been a problem as far as the political establishment is concerned. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Malcom X and King were killed when they started to develop more anti-imperialist and internationalist outlooks. The original BLM leadership was also making connections between Black oppression at home and the oppression of Palestinians abroad. I don’t know what will happen to Coates, but I think his days of being invited to write for The Atlantic, the NYT, WaPo, etc. are over. I’m sure he knows this and is fine with it, but it illustrates how narrow and right-wing the Overton Window is in our “actually existing democracy.”
Thanks for writing, Leah. I find it interesting that you would put Coates in a similar category with MLK, Jr., as I see them as occupying vastly different functions in American society. I would think most people would classify Coates as being in the same general column as James Baldwin.
That said, I was thinking that even that classification would be too narrow. I personally would put Coates in the same category as William Faulkner -- someone highly respected in American letters regardless of racial background. True, he does expound on race issues often; but he's a meistro of many forms: essay, fiction, storyboarding.
I cannot see Faulkner being disrespected to the extent that Coates was by Dokoupil, at least not on the basis of anything he would have written. It would have taken an outside scandal to have anyone deign to treat him in less-than-laudable fashion, much less dent his career.
Coates is being raked over the coals for something he wrote. This, even though his detractors as well as his admirers note that Coates's language is lush and thoughtful and intricate. I haven't read the book, but judging from the reactions of those who have and who detail the nuance and the work that Coates obviously put in, nothing justifies the treatment that he received from Dokoupil. This would be true even had Dokoupil come up with real questions and not regurgitated hasbara talking points. Dokoupil, in that sense, doubly disrespected Coates.
I think your prognostication is a bit too strong. I say this considering the interview circuit that Coates is currently on. He's been on Amanpour & Company, the Daily Show, MSNBC, NPR (I believe), as well as some secondary-tier outlets such as Zeteo and Trevor Noah's outlet. I'm sure he has more planned. He may, as some have said, be "burning through his cachet" or "elite capital" at a high rate, but he has reserve. I think this CBS Mornings hit job may be the biggest frontal attack that he will suffer.
I will say that I think it's just as well that I took a little bit to respond to your reply, as there was movement on the CBS front. First, Dokoupil came in for rebuke from his immediate superiors (a recording of which was leaked to Bari Weiss's _Free Press_; Weiss's infamy stems from Libs of TikTok). They said that his questioning did not rise to CBS's standards. That was all fine and good. But then Dokoupil started getting defenders, one of which was in that CBS editorial meeting, Jan Brewer; another was Washington Post's Ruth Marcus, an otherwise quite respected opinionist on legal matters. But what made a splash yesterday was the fact that Shari Redstone, CEO of Paramount, the parent company of CBS, in an extraordinary top-down intervention said that Dokoupil conducted a fine interview and chastised Dokoupil's immediate superiors. That's remarkable, and dispiriting. I'm considering writing a letter to some of the CBS higher-ups, because it's zany to think that Redstone felt the need to shelter Dokoupil when he clearly violated journalistic ethics and just about every basis of propriety afforded to those of status in American culture.
People wonder about institutional racism. The Marcus column and Redstone's intervention are instances of institutions coming together to protect someone who displayed otherwise rank bias against a well-respected author of color. It is plain.
Thank you for your reply. I know that MLK Jr. and Coates occupy different roles in the intellectual landscape, but I wasn’t sure how to phrase it. I guess they’re both public intellectuals, but King’s writings weren’t his main claim to fame, obviously. In the news articles I’ve read from the 1950s and 1960s, almost every notable Black person who was politically outspoken was described as a “civil rights leader” in some capacity, so make of that what you will.
In any case, I agree that it will be interesting to see if Coates can force Palestinian into regular political discourse in a real way (as opposed to the vague banalities about “both sides” and a fantastical two-state solution). Even Jimmy Carter couldn’t do it, but maybe it will be different with Coates, given his previous ties to elite publications. Carter wasn’t a writer by trade, but if Coates gets cancelled by The Atlantic, the New Yorker, etc. it will be more noticeable. The problem is that there is a zone of silence around Israel in general that makes it difficult for ordinary people to get accurate information about what is going on with Palestine. I think the Israeli view that Palestinians don’t exist is a a pervasive in the legacy media, which is why even human interest stories that might humanize Palestinians are so rare.
I only drew the distinction between Coates and MLK, Jr. primarily because the material conditions are different; the cultural moment is different. And, to be honest, being a Gen Xer, I still have not been able to place myself back in that time period of MLK being alive in terms of bringing that moment alive through reading history--it's so distant, it's unimaginable. So that's my mental block that affects that analogy for me. But also, King was shepherding a movement, and I cannot begin to place Coates in that role. He's been very influential as a public intellectual, though. There's that.
To your point about Coates affecting his access to certain circles, it seems from several of his interviews where he's address this possibility he's made peace with that as possible fallout. I think it remains to be seen; though, reading Peter Beinart's brief write-up that preceded his own sit-down with Coates (an interview not available to non-subscribers like me), he stated without qualification that Coates's role in American life will change due to this book. No ifs, ands, or buts. So there's that.
I think things were more fluid when I first posted this essay, before Redstone of Paramount came out and publicly spanked her own executives. I think that's a signal that other sectors of the Establishment should take a pass on Coates and not be afraid to flout standards, ethics and conventions. Sam Seder said Dokoupil violated the general terms of engagement; Redstone seems to be completely changing the terms of engagement, because there's no reason for her to have swerved so fully out of the chain of command. All of that is to say that I think there was a genuine moment where at least part of the cultural zeitgeist could have made a palpable shift, and that likelihood is not as high as it was two days ago. Alas.
Thank you for your reply. I think the term I was looking for that could describe both MLK and Coates was “race man.” It’s rather anachronistic in many ways (as if three or four guys could ever represent the breadth of thought for twelve percent of the population), but I think that’s the best term. Race men didn’t have to shepherd a movement, they just needed to be influential. The problem comes when the race man tried to transcend that by making connections between the Black struggle and other movements, which is a no-go.
The fundamental question is whether the Palestinian struggle can become part of mainstream political discourse. There are some attempts to break through, as Coates demonstrates, but the hostility he’s receiving suggests that it will be an uphill battle. While the anti-apartheid movement wasn’t popular, supporters didn’t face anything like what modern pro-Palestinian protesters are now. Mainstream reporting on Palestine essentially functions as printing/broadcasting press reports from the IDF (CNN, for example, has admitted that all its reporting about Palestine has to be approved by the Tel Aviv office).This genocide and the US’ complicity in it illustrates that we already live in a dystopian society, but since the victims are out of sight and out of mind, we can keep fooling ourselves that we live in a democracy.
Media bias has gone wild. Thanks for posting. I'm so glad he's speaking out.
Thanks for reading, Diana.
What’s been going on these past two weeks in the media is ultra-alarming. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Maybe there is a point where we will understand that the extremist who has a book in their backpack is the one who is right and all the “normal” and so called reasonable people are the ones who are wrong. Just because you might be surrounded by people who hold your views, doesn’t mean those views are moral. We get so comfortable in our thinking. There is a certitude that comes with being in lockstep with the majority. It takes courage, maybe desperation, to speak out against the views of the majority.
The thing about Dokoupil's comment about the backpack is that he prefaced that by stripping Coates of all of his accolades. I saw a brief clip of what I'm sure is a longer interview of Coates with Trevor Noah, and Coates told Noah that he wasn't offended by that tack because he doesn't think of the awards as "him". Fair enough, and I understand where he's coming from; but what Dokoupil was doing was reducing him for the audience so that they could see him not as an award-winning and thoughtful author but as a shorn Black man, now attributed with "extremist" ideas. Dokoupil was transforming Coates into a ragtag terrrorist with this rhetorical technique. And it's important that he did this right out of the gate -- he knew he needed to do this.
As for your note about conformity, I've mentioned in earlier essays about the Asch conformity study of the 1950s. This is where one dupe is placed in a group of confederates -- those in on the subterfuge -- and they are as a group made to evaluate the measure of a line. The three lines are clearly longer or shorter than the others; but when the group as a whole declares the wrong line to be the longest, far more often than not the naive person will go along with the group. Asch found that if just one person deviated from consensus that the group will lose its hold, otherwise strengthened by unanimity, over the subject.
Coates is the deviating one, outspoken in his need to state the truth, to be an honest witness. His detractors are concerned, whether consciously or more instinctively, that he will disturb their unanimity and encourage others not only to see the reality in front of them but to report on it, too. That's why we've seen so many quarters slash at Coates this past week. They don't want him to be a herald. But I've seen lots of comments from everyday people saying that they were keen to read his book.
I think Coates will move the needle, and that terrifies some folks.
I just bought the audiobook. The Message. I will be listening over the coming days.
Awesome. I hope it’s a rewarding read.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/have-we-missed-the-message-with-ta-nehisi-coates/id1710609544?i=1000672455293
This just popped up and thought it might be interesting. I have not listened yet. But plan to.
Yeah, thanks for posting the link! I came across a clip of that a few days ago, and then yesterday YouTube offered it in full, so I watched it then. It’s very thought-provoking, if for no other reason than Coates is interviewed by two people from the African continent. They bring a very non-American perspective that I think really broadens the conversation.
I would encourage contrasting Noah’s interview with, say, Ezra Klein’s interview. (They’re equally lengthy, so I’m not sure how much time people here want to devote to this issue; I personally am fascinated by this whole media moment.) Klein specifically delves into the Palestine-Israel conflict and takes up Dokoupil’s admonition that Coates didn’t spend enough time talking about Israel’s difficulties. Noah and his co-host, on the other hand, spent time exploring the rest of Coates’s book and letting Coates speak about what he was trying to accomplish. It’s remarkable, how different the interviews are.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg77CiqQSYk
I will check it out for sure. One thing is that Dokoupil’s intention was to admonish Coates… the result is that more people will now become aware of his work. I confess to not knowing of him at all. Just started listening to The Message. Great book and I love learning about Coats. Obviously he is a great writer! I love that he is getting more attention.