July 17, 2015

"In what is bound to be the most quoted passage from the book, you write that you watched the smoldering towers of 9/11 with a cold heart."

"At the time you felt the police and firefighters who died 'were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.' You obviously do not mean that literally today (sometimes in your phrasing you seem determined to be misunderstood). You are illustrating the perspective born of the rage 'that burned in me then, animates me now, and will likely leave me on fire for the rest of my days.' I read this all like a slap and a revelation. I suppose the first obligation is to sit with it, to make sure the testimony is respected and sinks in. But I have to ask, Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions? Does a white person have standing to respond?"

David Brooks addresses Ta-Nehisi Coates. The book under discussion is "Between the World and Me."

74 comments:

Lucien said...

I can't tell if Brooks is asking in earnest, or facetiously.

MaxedOutMama said...

Well, I knew there was a reason I did not like Coates.

Thank you for explaining my deep distaste.

rehajm said...

Yes, yes, and no.

jr565 said...

Did Coates's view actually change? That seems to still be the default view of many blacks towards cops. Every cop shooting of a black is an example of MURDER. Black criminality has NOTHING to do with the circumstance.

Tank said...

Coates should bend down, kiss the ground, and thank God he was born here and not in some African shithole. JMHO.

jr565 said...

so was this before or after Coates wrote about reparations. Was that the good Coates we're supposed to respect, as opposed to the rage filled Coates who doesn't care about white people dying in 9/11 trying to rescue people?

Tarrou said...

"A physicality" apparently means just sprinkling the word "body" in every four or five spaces.



The basest sort of inter-pseudo-intellectual drivel. Coates is so angry, so debilitatingly desperate to black up the reputation of the US he can't even see the deaths of thousands of people as anything other than part of his own demonizing mental jihad. There is no solidarity. Coates is not, and does not want to be part of the American society. He's rich, popular and widely read, and what is he selling? Straight hatred, and nothing but. You were scared of the cops your whole life. Ergo hundreds of cops and firefighters being murdered in broad daylight is a happy day? What unutterable filth.

MaxedOutMama said...

Regarding Coates, I know several families of recent African immigrants. I've just been sitting here trying to count them up. I know four families (multiple members) and eight individual black gen 1 or 2 immigrants. I do not live in a lily-white world.

The experience of these persons (who are all quite black) is entirely different than Coates' experience. Their experience is that the US is the land of opportunity. Their experience is pretty much the stereotypical American experience. They are all quite intelligent and very education-oriented; they are also very hard works and over-achievers. They are prospering in every way.

No one writes much about the split in culture between indigenous Americans of African heritage and the more recent (1-3 generations) group. It exists and it is profound.

There is also a very large split between the standard culture of rural deep south American blacks and the modern urban NE culture. It is impossible to describe the grace, dignity, quiet joy and deeply virtuous character of those who have transcended the dehumanization of Jim Crow culture. It's very centered on churches. For those who don't know anything about these people, who do not get any sort of representation in the media culture, the relatives of the slain in Charleston must stand. They are in fact somewhat typical.

I think it is this split that is causing some of the acute angst and culture of wrath portrayed in the media. Coates is a minority; he's a minority amongst black African-Americans, and he is defending his worldview against that majority.

Quaestor said...

I can't tell if Brooks is asking in earnest, or facetiously.

Brooks is asking permission to disagree. If he had a moral compass that didn't spin like a dervish he's tell Coates to kiss his broad white buttocks.

Nomennovum said...

"Lucien said...
I can't tell if Brooks is asking in earnest, or facetiously.

7/17/15, 11:58 AM"

Oh, he was being earnest all right. My skin crawled from all his simpering earnestness.

Fen said...

Coates is not one of our countrymen and should be deported. I choose Angola.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Coates is who he is. What else would he be after a lifetime of brainwashing by white liberals? It's Brooks who is so unctuously slimy that he excites nothing but contempt.

Rob said...

David Brooks, you do not have standing. The national conversation about race is meant to consist of you being lectured to. After which you may--indeed you are pretty much obliged to--kiss Ta-Nehisi Coates's black ass.

Anonymous said...

After that display of cringing, Brooks should have his name legally changed to Reek.

Yancey Ward said...

Pusillanimity, thy name is Brooks.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Oh gawd, more things about TNC? Can we just ignore him? His optometrist obviously gave him a prescription for "all race, all the time", and we just don't have the desire to be lectured to by people who see the world like that.

Gaslight said...

Firefighters a "menace of nature"? Really? I have heard of black people being distrustful of cops many times, and to a certain extent I even understand it, but FIREFIGHTERS? What the hell did a firefighter ever do to you?

TMLutas said...

Black police officers died on 9/11. Black firefighters died on 9/11. Coates doesn't give a damn. Their uniform transcends their race for him. If somebody cares to properly engage, they should gather the list of firefighters and police who died and are black and confront Coates with their names, with their stories, and demand he respect those fellow blacks and at least nuance his hate to the level of any KKK bigot. So far, Coates hasn't even achieved that low bar.

David Begley said...

Who cares what Ta-Neshi feels or thinks?

Why should David Brooks care?

Why buy this book?

I have never heard of this guy until about a month ago. Is he the next Tom Wolfe? Harper Lee?

YoungHegelian said...

If you'd like to get some insight into the theoretical background behind the moral pomposity of Coates & his ilk, take a gander at this link on Standpoint Theory.

Spiros Pappas said...

These men are racist losers. In what way is the experience of Black America different? All our ancestors have been enslaved and brutalized and whatever. For many of us, it is a living memory. Well, you know, WW2, but don't get me wrong, your relatives rounded up and locked into a church and burned alive is not as bad as being Black in America.

Amichel said...

Coates often writes about his physical insecurity while growing up. How his body was vulnerable to being injured or destroyed, even in just the daily walk to school. What is always elided is the fact that it was other black Americans who were the great danger to his body. But of course, it couldn't be the fault of his fellow black Baltimoreans, or the corrupt black mayoralty, that he lived in a world of such gross physical violence and poverty. It's the fault of White supremacy. In Mr. Coates world, every misfortune suffered by a black American can be laid at the feet of white supremacy. He's the sort to forget his umbrella, then curse the rain.

Scott said...

If Coates responds to Brooks by implying that he is a racist for whatever reason, then Coates will look like a garden-variety race-baiting jerk.

If Coates displays any degree of magnanimity, he will look patronizing and runs the risk of not appearing genuine.

I expect Coates to ignore Brooks.

Fernandinande said...

'were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.'

Armchair diagnosis: severe logorrhea, mild paranoid schizophrenia.

Skeptical Voter said...

Both Coates and Brooks are idiots. Why listen to the drivel from either one of them? They are both creatures of the left, albeit Brooks is supposed to be the "resident conservative" at the NYT. Not a hard slot to occupy when the other contenders for the prize are Messrs. Friedman, Kaufman and Blow.

BarrySanders20 said...

MaxedOutMama's experience is similar to mine. No wallowing in self pity or bitter resentment from my friend -- a Nigerian immigrant here on a student visa, just completing his phd, and now in demand from multiple employers on the west coast. No lecturing from another friend -- a Jamacian immigrant who owns his own engineering consulting business about the unfairness of society. He and his wife live modestly and stay focused on their children's' education. His daughter in now on a full ride in pre-med at UW. His son is still in high school but wants law, and he'll likely be a full-ride candidate too. Some of the most humble, but confident, competent, and contented people you'll ever meet.

Coates does not speak for all black Americans (recent or non-recent immigrant). A significant number think the way he does, but there are millions more who don't.

And Brooks does not speak for all white Americans (recent or non-recent immigrant) either.

So David Brooks, the individual, has standing (whatever that means) to challenge the thoughts and opinions of Coates, the individual who wrote them.

Thorley Winston said...

After that display of cringing, Brooks should have his name legally changed to Reek.

Are you suggesting that someone sent Brooks’ “favorite toy” to the NYC editors in a box?

Big Mike said...

(sometimes in your phrasing you seem determined to be misunderstood)

No, David, you ignorant slut, he is not in any way shape or form trying to be misunderstood, nor do you misunderstand him.

Kevin said...

The 343 New York City firemen who died on 9/11 were all just "little Eichmanns", apparently.

Coates should be drummed out of polite society - he is a racist a-hole.

Also, Hillary should be asked if she agrees with Coates' statement.

Virgil Hilts said...

Blogger Paul Zrimsek said... After that display of cringing, Brooks should have his name legally changed to Reek. That made me laugh out loud (I assume it was a GOT reference). I do think Ta-Neshi's contribution to the the improvement of race relations is about the same as Ramsay Snow's contribution to the improvement of the reputation of bastards.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Brooks seems to have an eccentric fascination with Black people. I believe he is projecting a false "authenticity" onto Black people that Brooks feels that he lacks. It is a privilege of the members of our ruling class to inflict their psychoses on the lower orders.

Anonymous said...

I get his issue with the police from his perspective, but the firefighters? WTF is wrong with him? Can't he distinguish between someone given authority and leeway to enforce the laws that he thinks are unjust in an unjust manner and someone whose job it is to save his family and his home if his freaking house is on fire?

Michael said...

Coates is sad that he missed the Jim Crow days and thus has to bundle his life in an imaginary Alabama circa 1961. It is a sickness shared by a lot of progressives who imagine themselves as having the heroism of their betters.

Brooks made a valiant attempt in a NY liberal way to tell Coates he is full of shit.

Marc in Eugene said...

I'm looking forward to TNC's response to Brooks, as a matter of fact. Superficially, anyway, TNC is someone some of whose views I reject out of hand; but perhaps in spite of the anger! and debilitating insecurity! he is more than that.

Dave said...

Ta-Nahesi Coates is easily the stupidest person allowed a public voice today. He exists to incoherently flog racism for Democrats, the same party that put his ancestors in chains, fought a war to keep them there, disenfranchised them, lynched them, and generally did everything possible to keep them down right up to the point when their votes could no longer be suppressed, after which they sold them the toxic blend of racism, self-pity, and welfare dependence that they had previously sold to poor whites.

It takes a profoundly confused person to blame the problems of poor areas on suburbia and an execrably racist one to make every misperceived affront about someone's race, but Coates manages to be both at once. Savagery is its own punishment, civilization is its own reward, and obsession with race is its own intellectual void.

I'm Full of Soup said...

A few weeks ago, Althouse posted about a Coates essay or scribbling aka drivel. One of the Althouse commenters wrote [I paraphrase]: I feel sorry for Coates's sons because they will very angry young men if their father's attitude rubs off on them.

That was quite a prescient comment.

Ann Althouse said...

"A few weeks ago, Althouse posted about a Coates essay or scribbling aka drivel. One of the Althouse commenters wrote [I paraphrase]: I feel sorry for Coates's sons because they will very angry young men if their father's attitude rubs off on them."

Kids rebel. They'll do what they decide to do with dad's heavy teachings. They're free. Or not. They get to choose.

Ann Althouse said...

We don't really know how Coates treats his sons! The book is in the form of being addressed to his sons. That's a literary trope, I presume. The book is directed at the affluent, educated book-buyers of America. We're the ones who are offered this good talking to. I suspect Coates wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do.

I'm Full of Soup said...

That's right - shitty parents can have a briliant, successful kids, Perfect parents can have a mass murderer kid.

The point made was Coates seems to one big old hater and that likely will affect his sons. That's all - no need to freak out or get so defensive.

Amichel said...

In the profile that went along with the release of his book, Mr. Coates shared that he was moving to Paris with his family for next year. I imagine living in France, a society that is if anything a more racist one than that of the US, might be eye opening to Mr. Coates. If he cares to open them, that is.

Moose said...

Well, remember: if you don't agree with Coates - totally and without reservation - you're wrong AND a racist. Even if you're black.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I suspect Coates wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do.

That is what parents try to do. But to believe that he is telling his son different from what he is telling the public assumes that he does not believe what he is telling the public. Is that your impression?

I have always assumed that Sharpton and Jackson were hucksters who were lying in order to promote themselves. My impression of Coates is that he really believes what he is saying.

mccullough said...

They are both cowards.

chuck said...

Ah, scratching the fashionable guilt of privileged white liberals. It's a dirty job, but Coates is just the man to do it.

Oso Negro said...

The ancestors of black Americans were the losers if Africa. Many of their descendants are the losers of America. It is sad to think that on the balance, even the accomplished and capable among them can never feel good about themselves. Perhaps it is time for them too move on. Liberia beckons.

Gahrie said...

We don't really know how Coates treats his sons! The book is in the form of being addressed to his sons. That's a literary trope, I presume. The book is directed at the affluent, educated book-buyers of America. We're the ones who are offered this good talking to. I suspect Coates wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do.

Now replace "Coates" with Derbyshire. Now compare how the world reacted to what they had to tell their children.

Anonymous said...

"...wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do."

Huh? That's ridiculous. Parents frequently resent, beat, and undermine their children; then, when they're adults, they frequently try to leech off them.

What you meant is something like "That's what most parents do" or "That's what good parents do." But then, that would have rendered your previous statement ridiculous, wouldn't it?

Anonymous said...

That is, why would you assume that some random guy is a *good* parent? You know he's a parent, but that doesn't tell you anything about how he treats his children. Human history is chock-a-block with tales of parents heaping all sorts of abuse on their children -- *especially* of the variety where they use them as pawns in their own lives. Hell, don't you even have a tag for the abuse of children as political pawns?

But you tell us, no, don't be open to the very real possibility that Coates is a *bad* parent simply based on the evidence of a lengthy work addressed to his children. Assume, you tell us, that like all parents he tries to help his kid succeed. But, of course, NOT all parents do that! A great many do the opposite.

Known Unknown said...

I do think American blacks have a tougher time with police and authority. However, they keep giving more and more power to the same fucks that bring that power down on them.

This is what big government looks like, Coates.


Dave said...

BarrySanders20 (GRBOAT) -- Exactly. Most people I know are nonwhite immigrants who came here to escape precisely the pathologies that Coates embodies, and it's not like we built any walls to keep the guy from leaving the country he despises. If he wants to emigrate to Sierra Leone (0% white) I can point him to a nice little Kona village where my family is trying to drum up $10K to provide a standpipe to villagers who are currently subsisting on an ever-shrinking trickle, which they have to carry for miles back to their homes. I'm sure they'd love to hear him complain.

Let us all weep for his sons.

Known Unknown said...

" I imagine living in France, a society that is if anything a more racist one than that of the US, might be eye opening to Mr. Coates."

I hope he doesn't attend a football match. They might try to throw bananas at him.

Etienne said...

I was very disturbed by Coates.

Brooks is probably the best white man to comment on all that hate.

Anonymous said...

Black police officers died on 9/11. Black firefighters died on 9/11. Coates doesn't give a damn. Their uniform transcends their race for him.

Marched up 70 floors of stairs to their flaming doom trying to rescue the standard NYC polyglot of peoples without regard to race, creed or color.

"The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."
Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.)

Owen said...

Paul Zrimsek (at 12:34) said:

"After that display of cringing, Brooks should have his name legally changed to Reek."

Thread-winner. Not just that, but a mike-drop show-closing we're-done winner.

DAMN, Zrimsek, you got game!

George said...

TNC is a flat out racist, it is as simple as that. But he is also a racist who is adept at playing in the self-loathing of white liberals.

Owen said...

Ann Althouse said: "We don't really know how Coates treats his sons! The book is in the form of being addressed to his sons. That's a literary trope, I presume. The book is directed at the affluent, educated book-buyers of America. We're the ones who are offered this good talking to. I suspect Coates wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do."

Exactly. Coates searched for, found, and is mining to the utmost our culture's highest-value memes and themes. The fond parent struggling to help the next generation fulfill its golden promise, despite the tragic flaws. Cue music.

Coates is a pure hustler. Before I read Brooks' excerpt of his stone hatred for the heroes who climbed the stairwells of WTC to their death, I thought Coates was just a hustler. Now I think he is beneath contempt, pathologically damaged by some self-hating worm that I really don't plan to get close to.

This is not about race. If Coates were halfway rational about race, I'd engage. But he's just working out some private sickness on our dime.

No thanks.

Bob Boyd said...

How many black bodies did those police and firefighters save from being shattered before they died that day?
Apparently, Brooks has his own version of the stupid/fatuous distinction. He reads something stupid and responds by being fatuous.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Owen said...
Paul Zrimsek (at 12:34) said:

"After that display of cringing, Brooks should have his name legally changed to Reek."

Thread-winner. Not just that, but a mike-drop show-closing we're-done winner.

DAMN, Zrimsek, you got game!

Well played, sir! Well played indeed!

Pettifogger said...

"Love it or leave it" is a much criticized sentiment. The criticism is largely justified, but not in all cases. In all seriousness and not to be snarky, if Mr. Coates finds the U.S. such a dangerous and unpleasant place to be, why is he still here?

He is a man of sufficient means to pick up and move if he finds it would better his life. While my ancestors came here voluntarily instead of in chains, they mostly came here with less means than Mr. Coates has available to him. If this country is as bad as he says, he is irresponsible for rearing his children here.

Chris403 said...

A cop shoots his friend in Maryland, and the lesson Coates learns is to not only hate all NYC cops, but also hate NYC fire fighters?? Not only that, but cops and fire fighters who are trying to save innocent lives from a terrorist attack.

It's hard to think of someone living in America with worse ethics than Ta-Nahisi Coates.

MaxedOutMama said...

Cracker Emcee - For once I agree with you - I really don't believe that the attitudes Coates displays are natively African or natively African-American.

I've had more time now to run through my acquaintance list since childhood, and although I've known self-professed black radicals (two Black Muslims) they were in fact not very radical. Their preaching was very much a self-improvement, self-respect, act-right type of thing.

I suspect Coates is a product of extreme white-liberal racial BS culture in the US. The things I have noticed about that culture is that they believe that blacks are dumber than all the other groups, which is not my experience at all, and that they believe blacks are helpless. If I had to hang out with people with these underlying assumptions for a few decades, I'd be angry too.

You can't argue with them because they won't admit what they believe, and it drives you about flat nuts!

You take these so-called "dumb" kids and you put them in an old-fashioned school environment like a parish school (Catholic school), and all of a sudden you've got a good solid academic group. So it's really the broader culture doing it to them.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Owen @ 1:48 PM:

DAMN, Zrimsek, you got game!

+1

Lewis Wetzel said...

Look at who signs Coates' paychecks. It is a person very much like Brooks.

Dave said...

MaxedOutMama -- Of course his nonsense is not natively of any race -- they're fundamentally Democratic views. I don't even have to look up what he's written about Clarence Thomas or Condi Rice to know what he thinks of them.

It's really rather amazing, he even reflexively sympathizes with Democratic blacks from the 1800s against Republican blacks in the Union League.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/05/clarence-thomas-thinks-he-has-it-hard/18243/

Sebastian said...

"I suspect Coates wants his kids to do well and is giving them what will help them have as good a life as they can get. That's what parents do."

Umm, not all parents.

Of course, I don't believe you actually believe that. Jesus taught me.

amielalune said...

Coates is a self-hating black along the lines of Moochelle Obama. The only thing that would truly make them happy is to wake up one morning to discover they had turned into white people overnight.

Since we can't help them with that; I choose to ignore their rantings.

Unknown said...

Does Coates actually think that only white people died in 9/11? Or only police officers? What does he have against ambulance drivers? I mean, except rank, naked paranoia? That and a staggering inability to see that people are individuals, not generic proxies for various races, classes, etc.

Ron said...

"Shut your mouth! But I'm talkin' about Wittgenstein....can you dig it!"

Ludwig is a complicated man...but no one understands him but his woman.

Clyde said...

"Lighten up, Francis."

-- Sgt. Hulka, Stripes

ken in tx said...

This is a special example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, except it is in the moral realm instead of the intellectual realm. Some people are so stupid that they do not know they are stupid. Coates is so immoral and bigoted that he does not realize that he is immoral and bigoted, even though he is not stupid.

H said...

Brooks makes two important points (neither having to do with 9/11):
1. In any "conversation about race", the only thing any white person can say is: "The country has a history of racism; vestiges of that history influence (perhaps unconsciously) the thinking and attitudes of all white people; white people must constantly be vigilant to be aware of that and to make sure that unconscious influence does not emerge in their thoughts or actions." In a lengthly conversation, the white person can repeat that over and over. If a black person claims to really want an honest conversation, ask that person to name one opinion or policy position that (a) the person seriously disagrees with, but (b) can be put forward by a white person without that being evidence that the white person is racist. In my mind, I now replace the words "racist" and "sexist" with "I disagree with you."

2. TNC often writes in an apparent deliberate attempt to be vague or unclear or self-contradictory. I wish someone with more formal training in analysis of rhetoric would address this, but it seems to me that this is a fairly common approach in rhetoric of black thinkers. Rather than making a divisive or controversial statement clearly (for the purpose of an example, "God hates white people"), the writer will tell a story or make some tangential comments or ask some rhetorical questions ("The hurricane passed over the predominantly black neighborhood and struck the predominantly white neighborhood," "In the time of Noah, God sent the flood." "Could God love a race that produced such a person?") and then leave it to the audience to draw the correct inference ("You know what I'm talking about.") This allows the writer to have it both ways: to the audience who agrees with him, he is saying "You know I am with you brother"; to the audience who disagrees, he is saying, "I never said that-- if you read that into my comments, that's an indication of how sick your mind is."

Rusty said...

Just one question. What dress was Brooks wearing when he wrote that. He has excellent taste and I want to get my wife something.

Bad Lieutenant said...

H. 2. The word you seek is sly, or perhaps sneaky. But I think it's a big racey racist thing to call blacks that (not that it is the sole province of blacks), so maybe someone has a clever euphemism.

Californio_6th_ gen said...

My reaction to Mr. Coates is split. I'm half white and half Latin. On the one side' my ancestor fought in the American Civil War for the union and, despite being struck by four musketballs in one battle, was never wounded. If history weighs so heavily upon Mr. Coates, then no doubt he owes me a debt of gratitude for the actions of my ancestor. As a Latino, Mr. Coates is A demographic anomaly. No matter what he says, it will be rendered irrelevant by time. Let him play two friends. They're not very nice to you there if you're a pied noir, let alone everywhere else.