More on Coates
July 27, 2015
I read two good pieces responding to Ta-Nehisi Coates' book, of which I blogged over the weekend.
The first, by John McWorther on Daily Beast, discussed Antiracism as a religion. The main premise is that educated white elites are part of an antiracist religion that has some benefits but also disallows certain questions and criticisms. He takes Coates to be a prophet and writer of scripture in this religion. McWorther's essay itself raises some provocative questions that should critique the way some progressive handle conversations about race. "Real people are having real problems, and educated white America has been taught that what we need from them is willfully incurious, self-flagellating piety, of a kind that has helped no group in human history."
That essay directed me to a David Brooks column on Coates' book. Brooks respects the book and encourages everyone to read it. But he wonders if, as a privileged white man, he can criticize or question anything. I did like the acute analysis Brooks brought to the book, demonstrating that a determinism burdens it:
In your book the dream of the comfortable suburban life is a “fairy tale.” For you, slavery is the original American sin, from which there is no redemption. America is Egypt without the possibility of the Exodus. African-American men are caught in a crushing logic, determined by the past, from which there is no escape.
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