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Related: About this forumRead: New York Magazine’s Cover Story on Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates
This weeks "New York" magazine cover story profiles Ta-Nehisi Coates and talks about his new book, Between the World and Me. In the article, Coates, who writes for The Atlantic, talks about the Confederate flag, the tragedy in Charleston, and the widespread interest in his book. The in-depth article is worth a read, but here are some choice quotes:
On the Confederate flag:
I mean, I tweeted this out, but I didnt expect it to happen. And hell, they did it! It turns out that was actually what was in motion. Shit!
On the families of the murdered nine in Charleston forgiving the killer:
Is that real? I question the realness of that . Is it aspirational? Like, I say, I forgive you because I think Im supposed to?
On people being interested in his work:
When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, Im always surprised. I dont know if its my low expectations for white people or what.
http://www.colorlines.com/articles/read-new-york-magazine%E2%80%99s-cover-story-writer-ta-nehisi-coates-0?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+racewireblog+%28Colorlines.com%29
July 12, 2015 9:00 p.m.
The Hard Truths of Ta-Nehisi Coates
Late this spring, the publisher Spiegel & Grau sent out advance copies of a new book by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a slim volume of 176 pages called Between the World and Me. Here is what I would like for you to know, Coates writes in the book, addressed to his 14-year-old son. In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body it is heritage.
The only endorsement he had wanted was the novelist Toni Morrisons. Neither he nor his editor, Christopher Jackson, knew Morrison, but they managed to get the galleys into her hands. Weeks later, Morrisons assistant sent Jackson an email with her reaction: Ive been wondering who might fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died, Morrison had written. Clearly it is Ta-Nehisi Coates. Baldwin died 28 years ago. Jackson forwarded the note to Coates, who sent back a one-word email: Man.
Morrisons words were an anointing. They were also a weight. On the subject of black America, Baldwin had once been a compass Jimmys spirit, the poet Amiri Baraka had said, eulogizing him, is the only truth which keeps us sane. On the last Friday in June, the day after Morrisons endorsement was made public and then washed over Twitter, Coates sat down with me at a Morningside Heights bar and after some consideration ordered an IPA. At six-foot-four, he towers over nearly everyone he meets, and to close the physical distance he tends to turtle his neck down, making himself smaller: A public persona but not a public person, explained his father, Paul Coates. Ta-Nehisi said he thought Morrisons praise was essentially literary, about the echo of Baldwins direct and exhortative prose in his own. The week before, The New Yorkers David Remnick had called the forthcoming book extraordinary, and A. O. Scott of the New York Times would soon go further, calling it essential, like water or air. The figure of the lonely radical writer is a common one. A writer who radicalizes the Establishment is more rare. When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, Im always surprised, Coates said. I dont know if its my low expectations for white people or what.
It had been nine days since the young white supremacist Dylann Roof had massacred nine black churchgoers in Charleston, and Coates, whose great theme is the intractability of racial history, had helped to orient the debate, to concentrate attention on the campaign against the Confederate flag: Even casual tweets he sent out were retweeted hundreds of times. The television behind the bar was tuned to President Obamas eulogy for Reverend Clementa Pinckney, which was just about to start. The broadcast was muted, but Coates noticed the tableau: Theres a sister over here to the left, shes natural, no perm, and a very black dude, and then an African-American president. Coates imagined how this would appear to a 4-year-old white boy: Thats the world as he knows it, Coates said. So all these people saying that symbols dont mean anything thats bullshit. They mean a lot. Coates has often been a critic of the president from the left of his instinct to submerge race in talk of class, of his moralizing to black audiences. Im going to make a prediction, he said. Hes going to say something incredible.
Read More: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/ta-nehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me.html
Recursion
(56,582 posts)kwassa
(23,340 posts)Brilliant and important.l
brer cat
(24,565 posts)a few days ago. This part of the review took my breath away:
What Between the World and Me does better than any other recent book I can think of is relentlessly drive home the point that racism is a visceral experience. As Coates so compellingly explains, It dislodges brains, blocks airways, rips muscle, extracts organs, cracks bones, breaks teeth. To be black in the ghetto of his youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease.
As a white person, I know that I can never walk the proverbial mile in the shoes of a black person. I think Coates may put me as close to that journey as it is possible for me to be. I am looking forward to reading it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-black-mans-stark-visceral-experience-of-racism/2015/07/09/68a3fca6-23d7-11e5-b72c-2b7d516e1e0e_story.html
sheshe2
(83,770 posts)I would love to read it. Will see if my library has it. Can't afford to buy books.
Thanks for that review.
brer cat
(24,565 posts)I am hoping to get it through the library here.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)Fascinating interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Starry Messenger
(32,342 posts)Should be arriving this week. I just finished his first book. Not only are his insights incisive, his turns of phrase and prose are just beautiful.
Cha
(297,237 posts)He does not hold back!
Liberal_Stalwart71
(20,450 posts)YoungDemCA
(5,714 posts)I will read the whole article.
Spazito
(50,338 posts)There is much to digest within the article, a lot to think about.
Thanks for posting this, I am certainly going to purchase his book and be on the lookout for any of his works going forward.
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)Who could any one pick up a pen again after having a legend write that you are heir to a legend.
Number23
(24,544 posts)He is one of the most important writers out now.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)I will be reading more from Coates. He has a way of putting his shoes on your feet.
sheshe2
(83,770 posts)I want that book.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)I want to buy 100 copies & give them to all the good people I know, who would appreciate it's worth.
It is a treasure.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)sheshe2
(83,770 posts)William769
(55,147 posts)Mira
(22,380 posts)was in the mailbox today.
I know what I will be doing tomorrow.