I agree – but not for the reasons Toni Morrison thinks. If you want to understand why our nation is having such upheaval related to the subject of race, this book makes it abundantly clear. And yet, the clarity doesn’t come from Coates’ argument itself, but from the proclivity of the argument in our current culture.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is exactly what you would think he would be, as the son of lifelong married, professional, atheistic parents who were Black Panthers, the grandson of lifelong married, professional, atheist grandparents. He is privileged, educated (though the only one of seven siblings who did not complete their degree), wealthy, well-traveled, and considers religion a salve for the weak. Yet he claims he is an oppressed victim who is constantly in fear of racist violence. But, here’s the thing: Ta-Nehisi Coates has *never* experienced racist violence. In fact, I have experienced infinitely more racist violence than Ta-Nehisi Coates has experienced because anything divided by zero is infinity. I have had my ass beat just because I was white, multiple times. Ta-Nahesi Coates can’t even tell a single story about being called a racist epithet. Let me lay out his three examples that are supposed to give credence to his rambling screed about how awful it is to be black in this racist nation:
1) He was pulled over once. He gave his license and registration to the cop. The cop checked them and gave them back to him. That’s the whole story.
2) Once, in a busy subway station, a white lady stumbled over his son and said, “Come on!” Coates, in response, by his own admission, wildly overreacted and threw his rage at the alleged white racism he had suffered from his whole life at this unsuspecting woman. While Coates doesn’t give any actual details about what he exactly said and did, a white man stepped in to defend the lady and said he could call the cops. That’s it.
3) A black college friend of Coates was killed by a *black* cop, who was part of a police force that is largely black, in a county run by black Democrat politicians, in a Democrat-dominated state. Coates repeatedly calls this event “racist”, even as he describes the cop’s history as that of a bad cop. The killing was not seen by anyone else, and the cop claimed the young man tried to run him over with his jeep (he seems to have been shot while driving his car toward the cop, by Coates’ account). That’s all we know.
That’s his entire evidence for the repeated, ad nauseum, claim that black bodies are currently being systematically raped, exploited, and murdered by whites. He calls white people “Dreamers”, because allegedly they have a Dream to which they are aspiring that he somehow believes that he cannot attain. But, of course, Ta-Nehisi Coates is, by any objective standard, living the Dream.
So, the intellectual dishonesty of his entire argument aside, the value of the book for those of us who seek a better conversation is that this dishonest argument is self-perpetuating. We see the light attempting to break through the deception at moments in the book. Early on, he swallows a one-line argument by Saul Bellow, “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus”, and Coates helpfully explains to us that we don’t know, because Tolstoy is white and that’s why he is important – not because the Zulus had no written language prior to European missionaries arriving in their lands in the decades after Tolstoy’s birth. But, this was challenged later in Coates’ time at Howard by Ralph Wiley: “Tolstoy is the Tolstoy of the Zulus, unless you find profit in fencing off the universal properties of mankind into exclusive tribal ownership.”
But that isn’t good enough for Coates. He rejects it out of hand, even as he admits its profundity. So he continues to search for the thing that will set apart the group he chooses to identify with. But he runs into a problem - there is no shared African heritage. It’s a massive continent, and people from Africa spread all over the world and have no coherent shared ideology and history, just like every other massive people group. But, Coates, with a foundation of militant racism taught by his Black Panther father, and militant atheism taught by his parents and grandparents, must find something that separates him from the hated Dreamers. It doesn’t matter when he finds that Africans oppressed Africans, or that Europeans oppressed Europeans. What matters is that Europeans oppressed Africans, too.
When Coates tries to tie his experience into his narrative, we find the intellectual dishonesty continues he has stories of the thugs in his neighborhood, who are black, and how he has a gun pulled on him by a local thug. It’s white racism, even though the particular thug is black. The violence in Baltimore is white racism, even though it is almost exclusively being perpetuated by local residents, who are black, and has been for decades. The facts of lived reality don’t matter. “Never forget,” he tells his son, “that we were enslaved for 250 years. Never forget that we were slaves longer than we have been free.” But Coates has never been enslaved. He has never lived under Jim Crow. He has never been a sharecropper or suffered under peonage. And, while Baltimore’s black neighborhoods absolutely did suffer the enduring negative impacts of redlining and underpolicing, these actual racist policies are not even mentioned by Coates. Instead, the actions of individual criminals in his own community are blamed on the actions of others decades in the past, and every word in this book, ostensibly directed toward his grown son, are meant to reinforce that disingenuous Narrative.
Coates warns his son that white cops will beat him with a nightstick – but how is it that Coates doesn’t have that experience, or even cites a single friend of his own who experienced it? Why is it certain for his son? Because the narrative demands it. Coates cites his wife’s family history of absent fathers as evidence of white racism – but none of those men were absent because they were killed or jailed by racists. It doesn’t matter. The Narrative matters.
Coates hates America. He says that the firefighters who rushed into the WTC and were killed on 9-11 are “no different” from the black cop who shot his friend. It doesn’t matter that he has no evidence of racism on their part, and knows nothing about their personal lives. The Narrative is all that matters. All representatives of America are racists. Soldiers fighting terrorists overseas are evidence of racism. As he says, “you don’t need evidence that the cop who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a black body.” Evidence, facts, truth – they don’t matter. The Narrative matters. Because slavery, a terrible racists institution, happened, and because Jim Crow happened, America and Americans are racist NOW. It doesn’t matter that Coates never cites a single example of a black woman he knows personally who was raped by a white man who got away with it, the rape of black women by white men is on an “industrial” level. Because racists in the 1850’s said racist things and supported terrible racist policies and acts, America is racist today. The Narrative is what matters.
“The people who believe they are white can never be your measuring stick,” he says to his son. Why?
Coates makes this bizarre claim that because he had to conform his behavior to that of civilized society, and he would have preferred not to, that this is another example of racism, forcing people to act “White”. But, who else has to do this? Everyone! Every child must become an adult. Every human must conform to the society around them. Every poor kid (like me, unlike Coates), had to learn language and customs that were foreign to us because of our upbringing. He is intimated by New York… as all non-native New Yorkers are. He is anxious when going to a foreign country and city… like all people are at first. Coates takes common human experiences and calls them “racism”. The Narrative is all that matters.
Coates laments that he “tried to clasp generational chains around your wrists”, but, sadly, that is exactly what he is doing in this book, clasping the chains clasped upon him by his own parents and grandparents, onto the next generation. His father’s George Jackson Prison Movement (look it up) printing press continues to grind out accusations through Coates’s words. He is making the maximum effort to convince his son of the Narrative, and I am sure he has been successful.
Near the end, Coates clings to his inherited dismissal of the supernatural, even when confronted by the incredible mother of his slain friend, a spiritual, confident woman. Coates sees she has something that he doesn’t, and says, “I wonder if I missed something,” but because he has already ruled out the value of the spiritual, he just moves on. What he sees with his eyes doesn’t matter. The Narrative must rule over all.
The current level of the problem with race relations is largely driven by this Narrative being shoved down everyone's throats by one side of the political spectrum, aided and abetted by Big Tech, Big Media, and Big Corporations.
The Narrative, that all of an individual’s negative experiences, no matter the source or cause, must be laid at the feet of white racism, is the One Ring. It is the Precious, which must not be surrendered at any cost. It is the Shadow of Sauron which threatens all the land, which can never be truly defeated, which rises up to overwhelm the world again and again. The Narrative, in the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie, is that racism isn’t merely an evil that exists and must be corrected, but an Original Sin that cannot be atoned for, and never changes in its impact. The evils of racism past must be the very same evil of racism today in impact. Except, for the Narrative, there is no Frodo, no Gandalf, no Aragorn, and certainly no Galadriel. There is only the Balrog, the Watcher of Moria, and the Nazgul, unstoppable forces stalking the earth, seeking to devour reputations, livelihoods, and family relationships. There is only Saruman, claiming that the only way to future peace is to submit to Sauron. There is only Wormtongue, whispering into the ears of people we thought were on the side of liberty, justice, and truth, turning them into the next woke betrayer. There is only the Mouth of Sauron, demanding everyone bow the knee before the Narrative, giving them the hope that, if they do so, they will be spared the worst.
But they will not. Sauron has no allies that are not his minions. The One Ring destroys or dominates all in its way, and the Narrative must be submitted to. You cannot have peaceful coexistence with it, because its only purpose is to sow hatred, fear, betrayal, and cowardice. The importance of this book is to see how pervasive and uncompromising the Narrative is, to understand what our society is up against. In one sense, our country has earned this. Our racist history has multi-generational damage and consequence, and failing to recognize the sins of our fathers has set us up for this present darkness. Yet, we must not compromise with the Narrative, promulgating the lie that you are culpable for the sins of past generations, and that you must atone for the sins of people you have never met. It is hard to resist, as it *feels* more compassionate to agree and apologize, but all that ends up doing is making it harder for others to stand on Truth.
One Ring to rule them all, one Ring to find them, one Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them, in the land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
Courage, dear heart.