Is America The Bad Guy? with Ta-Nehisi Coates

Lemonada. Typical leanings, typical factuality, and ownings of each news source. It's not about completely eliminating bias, but it does help you be a more informed consumer of the news, factoring in potential biases with your analysis. With this story, I noticed that the right-leaning publications emphasize that autism is on the rise. Subscribe to Ground News today. Use the link in the description or head to groundnews.com to subscribe and get 40% off the unlimited access vantage plan, the same one that we use here at HMDK. That's groundnews.com. To keep media transparent. T's and C's apply. We have infinite power to inflict violence at virtually anywhere at any point. And we kind of do it. And I don't think that's great. Ladies and gentlemen, Ta-Nehisi Coates is a public intellectual, which is different than a pundit. Public intellectuals are like organic farmers, improving the seeds, tilling the soil season after season until they finally harvest that perfect batch of tomatoes and take it to market. Pundits are Benihana chefs. They're chopping up the same fried rice every day for families of five, doing that dumb onion choo-choo train trick over and over again, throwing shit in their hat. It's volume business. That's why when Ta-Nehisi releases a new book or new article, I pay attention because it means he has something new to say. This is someone who took big, heady concepts like structural racism and race as a political construct and made it accessible to a broad audience. He moved the culture. And whenever I read his work, I learn something new. So when his most recent article was published, I learned something new. titled The Next Black President for Vanity Fair. I wanted to get him on the show to talk about it. Essentially, it's about the contradiction of a black presidency, which, in his words, owes its power to a movement against racist state violence at home, but seeks an office which has always practiced racist state violence abroad. And he uses the 2024 DNC as a perfect distillation of this. Kamala Harris and the party supporting her were invoking the names of female civil rights icons like Fannie Lou Hamer and Coretta Scott King, while preventing them from doing the same thing. preventing even a single Palestinian American from having their voice heard at the convention. But ironically, 60 years earlier, both of those women were being ostracized by Democrats for speaking out against another case of American-sponsored violence overseas. I'm talking about the Vietnam War. Now, at that time, on the eve of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, speaking out on Vietnam was not popular in the movement. It made Fannie Lou Hamer an enemy of Lyndon B. Johnson. And it got Coretta Scott King in trouble with her husband, and her husband's own organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. But they did it and spoke out anyway because they saw justice as a single connected struggle and rejected a survivalist democracy that asks you to protect one group at home while destroying another abroad. So I sat down with Ta-Nehisi Coates to talk about the thesis of his latest piece. If you want to say that the end point of our dream, of our struggle, you know, is simply to, you know, get us in, you know, positions of power, to integrate us into the machine and to not, you know, change the machine, then don't talk about Fannie Lou Hamer. Don't talk about Dr. Martin Luther King. That wasn't what their lives were about. The difference between intelligence and wisdom. There is no quality in American intellectual life that is more overrated than intellect itself. And we talked about the inherent violence of empire and whether Americans can shift their country in a different direction. How long are we going to go on with this, man? Like, is this going to be every presidency after every presidency? And then each one makes some sort of excuse for why we have to do this? I just. I don't want to be part of that project. And to be clear, I was on my best behavior for this interview. I didn't go on a single tangent about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Cowabunga. It was hard. But I managed. Every bold journey starts with a decision to go. And if you're ready, the defender is too. This is a vehicle built for more. Whether you're heading off the grid or just getting. running out of town for the weekend. Defender is a true icon, reimagined for a new generation. Its rugged exterior is built from durable materials and tested in the toughest conditions. 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You don't have to say this. I think you became a rock star in intellectual circles. Again, this is me saying it. I'll take it. Okay. But people, and specifically people in liberal circles, loved you for your moral clarity. Fast forward approximately nine years in 2024, you write, the book, The Message. How did you make sense of the reactions to, in 2015, you articulate a pretty clear domestic moral clarity. And in 2024, you articulated a foreign policy moral clarity. But how did you make sense of these disparate reactions? You know, it's tough for me to answer that. And I'll tell you why. I have given up on trying to understand other people's reaction to me and my work. And I don't say that like out of anger or out of disgust. Or anything like that. It's just impossible for me to see. It's very hard when you're in it to understand like what is going on around you. Especially, frankly, given the level of reaction, both to Between the World and Me and to The Message. It's very, very difficult because my experience of those books are almost certainly different than what it looks like to somebody watching The Experience. I mean, I just, you know, I can start with like The Message, right? Most people's experience of that book, probably begins with like, you know, my interview on CBS, right? I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist. Yeah, I was, you know, a contentious interview, but I expected it to be contentious. There's no way in the world I was going to say what I was going to say and then not, you know, be, you know, contentious. Yeah. But what I remember, what I remember about that is not so much the media. I remember that in every city we went to, almost, we tried to, we would have these very, very private meetings with the Palestinian American community in those cities. And that is what I remember. And my experience of that is people cooking. You know what I mean? Like the food outside to be that person. Yeah, hospitality. Like the incredible food. Yes, yes, yeah. You know, God, there is this upside down chicken dish that Palestinians do with the rice. And I know the name of it, but I don't want to mispronounce it. So I'm not going to say it, you know, but like that, that's my memory. Like people and like having these deep conversations because Gaza is happening, you know, and being in these intimate spaces that people welcome me into. Yes. And so like, when I think about the message and I think about like the reception to them, it's like, I have this incredible warmth. Like I actually don't have a contentious memory of it. Which is weird. I don't know what you're describing. - What you're describing is the warmth that you feel from people. - Yes. - Outside of this kind of like media kind of whirlwind that's happening. - Yeah, like you have to understand, like there's a thing that happens at distance that people see, right? - Yes. - But then there's like your everyday experience. - Right. - And my everyday experience was that, was one of tremendous overwhelming gratitude for that book. Like, that's what I think about. I don't, you know, like I know the fights happened, right? And I know the reviews happened. - Yeah. - But like me, in terms of what I saw and what I felt was a lot of, oh my God, thank you. - Can I tell you what many people in the Muslim community specifically felt? - Yeah, please. - We were talking off camera about this. My father was born 1950, but he very much is a byproduct of what happened in the world post 1948. - Right. - One of the things my dad has told me repeatedly and when he read your book, is he just couldn't believe number one, that you cared, and number two, that someone as prominent as you, the Ta-Nehisi Coates. - Right. - Is basically taking this, what was normally almost like a fringe issue that is talked about inside of mosques across America and the world. And you made it a top 40 mainstream record. Do you understand what I'm saying? - I do, I do. - That you centered this conversation that was for the longest time, basically relegated to the fringes and the corners of mosques across the country essentially. - Yeah, I mean- - In that outpouring of love was an articulation of, so you saw this. You're seeing this and you're validating that. - Yeah, and from my perspective, if you believe that I was sincere in what I wrote in "Between the World and Me", if you believe that the output of my work was sincere, it necessarily had to lead to this, you know? Now I get it, people write things all the time and may or may not be sincere. But for me, this was like pretty obvious. Like it was like where I was supposed to go, where I had to go. After I saw it, I saw what I had to write was pretty clear. I get that and that's the reaction I've gotten. And again, like, because I wake up with myself and I go to bed with myself every night, you know? My wife too, but you know what I mean? I live with myself. What I'm saying is my experience, my day-to-day experience is like my own conscience, my community, my wife, my kids, my friends. And like, they have certain morals and certain ethics that exist in this private world. And anybody who could see that would say, of course he did that. Of course, of course, any of us would. You know, like that would like, this is what you, this is what is demanded of you. This is what has to happen. And so again, I mean, I think where you started off is actually, you know, quite correct. Because from the perspective of, if you take the metaphor of the rock star, it obscures that person's private life. It obscures that person's private existence. They become a symbol of something. But there's a person inside of that. - Right, yeah, outside of that avatar. - Yes, yes, yes. - Of that avatar celebrity. - Exactly. And so that person, you know, is me. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, the message is what, you know, just what had to happen. I enjoyed the reception to the message much more than I enjoyed the reception to "Between the World and Me." - Really? - Oh yeah. Yeah, I did. I did, I did. Because "Between the World and Me" was a surprise. Like I didn't, like, I had like people reaching out to me and trying to get in touch with me and people upset about the book in ways that I just did not predict. But with the message, I kind of was like, okay, I know what this is in American life. The reaction is going to be crazy. And I kind of don't care. Like, I really, really didn't. What I cared about was those small, intimate, personal, human moments. Yes, I mean, so much happened, man. It's like, and I guess I can say this now. I had at my house, maybe November of '23, I was like, I was still working on a book. And, you know, we had a group of Palestinian Americans and black journalists that came together you know what I mean? In a very, very private space. It was my house. And just had this conversation about what was happening, what was coming, what was going to be. That's what mattered. Like those moments that never, I mean, they necessarily have to be away from camera. But I think a large part of what's wrong with our discourse right now is there is something that is being modeled as experience, as a human experience that involves a lot of people yelling at each other. - Right. - A lot of conflict. - Yeah. - But there are things that happen beneath the surface that if you're living a certain way, like that becomes your experience. It's a lot easier to live that way. - Yeah. - It's a lot easier. - I think one of the things that I just wanted to piggyback off of what you're saying, this passage that you wrote in the message has resonated with me. The moment I read it, it stayed with me and I've gone back and revisited it repeatedly. And I think it doesn't just apply to Palestine or current political discourse in America, but it's this idea of walking the land. You're bridging two ideas here. You obviously talk about going to Dakar, but also go into the occupied territories. But if you don't mind, I'd like to read this passage to you and we can unpack this. - Oh, my gosh, please. - You talk about walking the land. You say you have to walk the land. You have to see the elevation for yourself, the color of the soil. You have to discover that the ravine is really a valley and that the stream is in fact, a river winding south from a glacier in the mountains. You can't know any of this beforehand. You can't logic your way through it or retreat to your innate genius. A belief in genius is a large part of what plagues us. And I have found that people widely praised for the power of their intellect are as likely to illuminate as they are to confound. Genius may or may not help a writer whose job is above all else to clarify. - Yeah, I found that out the hard way. - Have you seen this up close with your quote unquote intelligent friends trying to logic their way through arguments? 'Cause I feel like what you wrote here is kind of, for lack of a better term, a low key diss at 99.9% of American discourse. I mean, really, really. - Yeah, no, it is. I have a number of, frankly, I don't have any friends like that, which is fortunate. - That's great. - I certainly have had colleagues like that. And I certainly have had, you know, people who are kind of, I guess, certainly there are people in media like that. Let me put it like that, let me say it. The best of my colleagues weren't like that, but certainly, in media, yes. I mean, I think there is no quality in American intellectual life that is more overrated than intellect itself, or what we consider intellect, or what we say intellect is. - What do you mean by that? - People are in love with, like, the idea of being able to process things really fast, which is great. Like, that's a good thing. You know, it's a good thing. - Right. - But being able to sit back with things, being able to consider things, being able to take some time to reach some conclusions, I think we overrate intellect and we underrate wisdom. - Why do people confuse intellect with wisdom? - I don't know. I don't know, actually. - Yeah. - I don't know. But there's a lot of talk about, you know, genius, right? And like, look, I've told this story before, but I mean, for me, like, "Palestine," it's like the great exhibit of this. I was a kid, and I've tried to think back on what would have been happening. But, you know, like, my parents would watch at that point, like, the nightly news, right? And we watched local news and the nightly news every night. And I can remember in my house, there was this discourse which vaguely hinted at the notion that, well, not hinted at, but articulated that to our eyes, the Israelis were "white" and the Palestinians were black. I don't mean literally. I mean, like, in like how we arranged our systems of justice, who was oppressed, who was not, who was oppressive. - Or just power structures. - Power structures, yes. And race was powerful. Race is power for us. Race is power. So that's not literally black and not literally white, but as power, right? And I went out into the world, and I pretty much rejected that as a way of looking at the world. I was like, "Oh, that's too simple." You know what I mean? That's not, you know what I mean? That's not sophisticated. - The world is a complex place. - It's a complicated issue. - Yes. And I grew up around people who, you know, like myself, were not particularly well-traveled, you know what I mean? Had not, you know, seen, you know, much of the world. And what I found was that, in fact, they were well-traveled, actually, which is to say they had, you know, faced a complexity of humanity, that people who, quote, unquote, were more well-traveled, who were more intellectual, you know, as we recognize it in standard forms, who were smarter as we recognize them in standard forms, but, like, their intellect was ultimately a cover for really, really awful things. And what I eventually discovered was, in fact, the basic morality that I had grown up with and the basic wisdom that I had grown up with actually probably had more to say about the world. You mean just that the fact that you're saying, "I'm coming at this issue with an open heart and with a level of huma-" I'm not trying to intellectualize or justify this. I'm just trying to understand what you're saying. - Yeah, exactly. I think you can use your intellect to illuminate, and I think you can use your intellect to cover, you know? Make people think, you know what I mean? That they don't understand certain things. You can talk really fast. You know, you can breeze over things. You can over-complicate stuff. You know, I've said this, and I said this to you, you know, when we were talking. I could have dropped anybody from the neighborhood that I grew up in, in West Baltimore, on the West Bank. And in two days, they would have understood the lack of justice. Like, they don't need to do, you know, all of this sort of, you know, let me, do I, you know, do I have a PhD? As I've said, in Middle East, they didn't need any of that. They didn't need any of that. I mean, you've talked about this many times before, but this idea of, and I hear it in both media circles, but academic circles, quote, it's complicated. But you've said this just, you've hit it with that punchline. I mean, look, there are aspects that are complicated, but not the aspects that they tell you are complicated. Okay. You know, like the basic morality of it is not complicated and rarely is. What you do is often complicated, but the basic morality of what is right and what is wrong. No, I don't think is, you know, is I have found it rarely to be complicated. Solutions are, you know what I mean? And I don't, you know what I mean? I don't mean to reduce that, but is it right to do X, Y, and Z or not? I don't, I don't find that to be particularly complicated. We hear this argument oftentimes where sure, America does bad things in the world, but fundamentally America has good intentions. How do you make sense of that? I used to kind of think that. Really? Yeah, kind of. I mean, I think. I think I had a vague belief that when bad things happen, it's usually by accident or whatever. In the world, when America does bad things in the world, it's usually by accident, which is bad enough. How did you, you felt that way even growing up as a, like, just as a black dude in Baltimore? I kind of like had a vague, like, sense of that. Yeah. Yeah. Because even as, you know, you're growing up with your politics, they're like, you don't really know the world. And the projection of American power is so strong. And again, like, I think part of it was as I was becoming a writer, again, I'm like, well, you know what I mean? I mean, you, like, there's an innate skepticism that I think all black people have of how America acts in the world. But with how you know, you've never been to Iraq. What do you know? Like, that's how you kind of feel about it. And then you get out in the world and you see, like, well, actually the innate skepticism was correct. No, we do, with great intention, very bad things around the world and have historically. And I probably could not have told you that with that kind of confidence, you know, until, you know, the past, you know. I don't know. Two or three years, not with the level of confidence and force that I feel it now. So the reason why I love your work so much, and I think the reason why it's it's created at times these deep discussions between people is there's there's a level of sincerity and honesty that I think people feel in your work, which is really beautiful. But there's this clip that I revisit all the time. That is from one of America's great lives. And I think it's a very powerful clip. a look at it a black presidency is a contradiction it owes its power to a movement against racial state violence at home but seeks an office which has always practiced racist state violence abroad do you feel like barack obama could have pursued a more moral foreign policy as president or was he too constrained by what the quote-unquote duty of what the american presidency is i think absolutely it's unquote he absolutely could have pursued a more moral foreign policy i mean he says this himself libya you know what i mean like that's that's the obvious one yeah you know um or yemen for me i was like did he have yeah that's what i was like did he have to use cluster bombs no i mean i think that's look i just i don't i don't um there are people in this world who will tell you look there is no version of this in which we don't do this kind of violence to people if who i was around the time of between the world and me and who i am now i just don't extend that level of trust to people when they say those things anymore i it's not that i can sit here and tell you why that's not true but i guess i just feel like they aren't necessarily to be believed is it because you feel the the paradox of power and institutions of like i know you're saying that but it's because i've just talked to too many people that live under the weight of it i have much more contact now than i did before with people who live under the weight of it and i just i cannot accept that there's no other way i just i can't accept there's no other way except you know every now and then somebody's wedding party gets boned like i don't i don't accept that i don't accept that i don't want to live in that world i don't want to be part of i don't want to be a writer who accepts that i don't want to be a writer who goes around justifying that you mean a writer that accept accepts america's collateral damage you're like i don't want to accept that i won't accept that it's not and it's harder to accept that now it may be true that on some level if you aspire to be president of the united states you have to you know accept some of that that might theoretically be true but my job is not to make your job easier like my job is not to you know what i mean endorse you know your your your moral failings even if i understand how they happened or why they they happened like what what good am i then i'm just kind of an operative you know state for the state right like i'm not writing anymore at that point there are plenty of there are enough people who are going to do that that's not my job are you basically saying and correct me if i'm wrong you're almost saying look the there is a group of people within that power structure that will always co-sign hey it has to be this way yeah or hey our hands are going to get dirty every once in a while let me make it easier too let me make it let me make sure i'm being as rigorous as i possibly can on this there are people who in 1830 very intelligent people would have said we cannot abolish slavery if we abolish slavery this country will collapse there will be chaos god knows what what happened logically like there's an argument for what they're saying yeah i would never argue that i would never argue that because what i would argue is slavery is so immoral you just can't sit here like you just there's just no option to pursue this path you know it's just so it's that wrong and i guess like when you highlight yemen as you just did what i think about is not just barack obama but it's not just barack obama it's not just barack obama i think about that for what 75 years like how long are we gonna make war in the middle east how long are we gonna do this like how how long like i think about like you know iran all the time it's like i don't think and i don't mean it's in any sort of disrespectful way because people have lives and they have things they have to do but i don't think people understand like between iraq and iran like how much war making we've done over there like how violent our presence has been over there and how in you know in certain cases how anti-democratic our presence has actually been how long are we gonna go on with this man like is this gonna be every presidency after every presidency and then each one makes some sort of excuse for why we have to do this i just i don't want to be part of that project you you articulate that frustration in this next quote you say for reasons moral pragmatic and perhaps mostly ancestral the next black presidency will have to think bigger to its list of adversaries which include a renewed white supremacy a rapacious billionaire class and energetic christian nationalism it must add another perhaps more formidable than them all empire yeah and i guess and maybe i'm being presumptuous here i don't want my struggle and my people and that's the ancestral part is i don't i don't want them tied to this and i i guess one of the things that motivated me writing that piece was not just you know necessarily you know what i saw at the dnc would come out of it but it is the fact that we had colin powell condoleezza rice barack obama susan rice um and then kamala harris linda thomas greenfield which which is seeing is a list of african-americans who actually only exist in those spaces because of the black freedom struggle itself that's the whole reason they're there right none of none of them would be there if not for the sacrifices of martin luther king if not for the sacrifices of rata sky king if not for the sacrifices of fannie lou hamer what did they say we were supposed to do what did they who did who did they imagine us being once we got into those roles and i don't think they imagined us in fact i know because they said it as people that would justify dropping bombs on people who are weaker than us like that just to me is a very very clear thing and i i guess i feel like because it's not honestly i struggled with this i struggled with like where we started this interview this idea that as a writer i would have a certain status and then i got to a point of acceptance where i realized okay well this is not up to me you know so if i have the mic if this is what it's going to be as loudly as i possibly can say i want to say that we are not down with this that you do not you know represent all of us yes you represent some of us you know i mean but you do not represent all of us and you certainly don't represent the best of us and we need you to represent the best of us i want you to represent the best of us you know i want you to represent the best of us you know um i don't believe that a struggle with its roots against human enslavement ends like this right like i just can't maybe it does maybe i'm wrong like maybe it does but i don't i don't i won't i won't personally accept that i won't your favorite friend group is back fx is adults follows five roommates living in new york leaning on each other 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yeah we have infinite power to inflict violence at virtually anywhere at any point um and we kind of do it and i don't think that's great you know um we find reasons to do it you know we tell ourselves we're being thoughtful about it but i just i just i don't think that's great i've i've felt the same way i recently had senator mark kelly on the show um former astronaut navy pilot but he talked about this idea of america's positioning in the world there was a moment in the interview that stuck with me i haven't been able to articulate how exactly i feel about it but i'd love to share it with you because it's very similar to what you're talking about right now let's take a look since world war ii so for 80 years we have been very fortunate that we get to set a lot of the conditions and i strongly believe that we have done a lot of positive things in the world we've supported other countries we've we we've we've stopped famine you look what george w bush did with pepfar we've saved people's lives one of the benefits we also get from being the leader of the free world, NATO, our Asian allies, allies in the Gulf, is we have benefited economically from having that as the conditions. Why would you want to give that up? So there's a great film, soundtrack to a coup d'etat by a Belgian filmmaker that everybody should see. It's about the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. And it is one thing to watch that film, which is incredible. It's about America's complicity and to a certain extent how it used Black American artists to conceal that. It is one thing to watch that film and be horrified. It is another thing to meet people for whom Patrice Lumumba is not a symbol. It was their parents' elected leader. And he was overthrown, killed in the worst possible way. It is one thing to feel like he's a hero. It is one thing to feel like it's a hero. Theoretically, hear about how bad, you know, war in Iraq was, it is another thing to actually know people. And so, like, that's a nice story. You know, that's a nice story. But can I actually tell that story to the people who have lived under our weight? Can I tell that story to the people that lived under Pinochet? Can I tell that story to the people that are being choked off in Cuba right now? Can I say that, you know? The part that stuck with me that was a bit chilling was we've been very fortunate that we get to set a lot of those conditions. But I think a key part of that sentence that was missing was as a byproduct of violence or the threat of violence. That's right. There's no nonviolent way that that happens. There's no nonviolent way to die. A lot of people get killed, you know? And we don't even, it's so much so that, like, it escapes us. And I want to stand up here and feel like I'm preaching to people. It has escaped me. You know, I have not, you know, always been, you know, cognizant of just, you know, the extent to which, you know, just going, like, the hard thing about writing that article on Kamala Harris, like, there's a section in there where, you know, I go through, like, all of the 20th century violence that we've done. Yeah. And, like, boiling it down was actually hard. It's actually extremely, extremely difficult. Just to meet the word count. Like, you're like, we got, yeah. Right, right, right. I mean, just in the 20th century. I mean, you just start from Eisenhower to, it is so much from Eisenhower just to Obama. It is so much. Well, how did you feel when Kamala Harris was on stage at the DNC and she said, we have the most lethal fighting force in the world? As commander in chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world. Not great. Not great. And, um, let me, let me give the other side of that before I give my opinion. Sure. The other side of that is, this is a black woman who is carrying, all the weight that black women carry in this country, um, aspiring to lead the country, um, with all the doubts and all the skepticism and all the racism and all of the misogyny. So I, I understand how you end up having to make that statement or feeling like you have to make that statement. I get it. And yet, and still, when she said that I was actually outside, um, and I was outside with, um, a group of uncommitted delegates who at that moment, um, were in the midst of a fight because they had been denied the right to speak, um, and address the convention. They had not been an Arab American speaker since 1988. And so like the people I was with, like the question you have to ask is lethal military or lethal armed forces. Who's on the other side of that, right? Because it's not just lethal and then just held here. Right. Who historically has been on the other side of that. And so here I am outside with people, you know what I mean? Whose are at that very moment on the other side of it, by the way, you know? And so, um, I, I didn't, I didn't feel great. I don't, and I have to like really be at pains to say this, right? Because I think not, I think I know Kamala Harris represents, um, the fruition, the hopes and dreams, you know, of a lot of black women, you know, who have struggled mightily in this country. And I really, really want to be maybe even, more than, you know, respectful of Kamala Harris herself. I want to be respectful of the struggle that made her possible. I don't want to be disrespectful of her, but I'm saying like, I have just tremendous respect and admiration for the struggle. And yet, um, and for the weight, you know what I mean? That was put on her. And yet, look, I get it. It's heavy. It's heavy, but why are we here? You know, are we here to just act like white men have acted every time before? So, so I'm just so like, what am I? I don't, I don't know what I'm doing. Well, I've struggled with this as well, because I'm a child of immigrants. You're a black American, your, your, your history, your roots is this country. I get asked this all the time. And I don't know what the answer is. What is our American dream? But what is that moment with Kamala Harris on stage? She represents the confluence of the struggle at the highest echelon, right? What is the black American dream? What is it? I'm, I'm not the person to ask that anymore. I don't, um, I can tell you what the struggle means. To me. Sure. Um, and the struggle means to me, um, not just that we would get the boot off our necks, but that we would destroy the boot, that this would not happen to other people. And I don't think I'm out on a limb on that. Like, I think that's always been the con the content of our struggle has always been that it's been bigger than us. Um, that's been the fact of it. You know, it is not the case that the civil rights movement just benefited black Americans. Um, it is not the case that the civil rights movement just benefited black Americans. themselves. Um, it is not the case that Dr. Martin Luther King, you know, when he saw what was going on in Vietnam said, well, I just need to shut up and just, you know, make sure my people were okay. Um, it is not the case that Fannie Lou Hamer was only concerned about, um, Mississippi. It's not the case that WB Du Bois was not concerned about the world. It is not the case that James Baldwin, you know, went over to Israel and was like, well, I can't talk about this cause I'm only concerned about my people. What I'm trying to say is the best of us is, have always, always been concerned, you know, be beyond ourselves, you know? Um, and so I don't really know how to be any different. And, and to the extent that, you know, I say that that is the weight that she has to carry. If you want to say that the end point of our dream of our struggle, you know, is simply to, you know, get us in, you know, positions of power to integrate us into the machine and to not, you know, um, change the machine, then don't, don't talk about Fannie Lou Hamer. Don't talk about Dr. Martin Luther King, you know? Um, because that, that's, that, that wasn't what their lives were about. If, if this is just mere, you know, pragmatic interest group struggle, and that's it. If it's a narrow kind of nationalism, if that's all we're concerned about, then, you know what I mean? Those are the, you know, the struggles and the peoples that, that we should model ourselves after. But that's not my struggle. That's not my fight. I've always had, man, I've always had deep, deep empathy for people specifically in immigrant communities, because you spend your whole life, you see your, your parents, family members, aunties, uncles, just playing survival ball. Not to jump metaphors, make it about sports, but you know how when you're just on defense, it's just survive. We're just trying to get to the end of the game. So the very idea of thinking about systems, changing systems and changing systems abroad is a fantasy. Yeah. It's, it's the only way I've been able to make sense of all of the talk about Kamala Harris's shortcomings in regards to this issue. Yeah. And I think that's true. I, you know, I look, I think that's true. I mean, I, a lot of black voters, people that I'm friends of mine that are disregarding the Gaza issue. That's right. They see so much of, do you understand for decades we were playing survival ball and now you want her to completely change the game? Right. Yes. Yes, I do. Yes. And I, I, yes, I do. I do. Um, and I'll say two things. One thing, there was one issue, which is your vote, right? Like that's one issue. Okay. Um, but whether you vote for her and whether you supported her to become president, that is not there for a license, you know, to just join the cheering section and to never, you know, have to engage with like the politics of the world and the politics of what the presidency does itself. In other words, um, you can be a voter, but you don't have to be a fan. And even as a fan, you know what I mean? You don't, you don't have to, that, that, that happens after that. I feel that one of the unfortunate things that happens, um, because of the, maybe the nature of elections and the way, you know, media coverage works is we think that politics is strictly a matter of who you cast your vote for. And I just, I just reject that. So you can have a political strategy. And I guess, you know, this was my, you know, argument myself was that, look, the world's the worst place with Trump as president. And I felt that, and I, and I believed that at the time, you know what I mean? Except that because I believe that and think that, and that my vote will reflect that, that that means that I have to co-sign everything, you know, that, that, that the person I'm voting for does. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't, and that I can't like loudly say this is wrong. How did you make sense? And what do you make of the people that blame those undecided voters or those voters who decided to not vote for Harris because of Gaza? They're, you hear they get blamed for the outcome of the election. I think I'm just going back to something that we have said in this interview. If you are someone who can go before a family who has to take calls to hear about their aunts, their cousins, their grandmothers bombed and buried under rubble and killed, and tell them, you now have to vote for a member of the administration that is making that possible, that is literally killing your family. Then that's you, that's not me. And that's not who I want to be. And what I would submit to you is that at the moment that you are asking people who are actively enduring a genocide to support a member of the administration that is making that genocide possible, you're telling them that it all depends on them and you can't promise them that when that person comes in, that that person is going to stop killing their family. If that's what your struggle hinged on, then I question the nature of your struggle. I question the nature of your struggle. I question the nature and I question the justice of your entire project. Because the moment we are addressing people like that, you've lost something. I feel like you kind of have lost the plot. And I get it. You get so deep into things that you can't see. But one of the things we forget, and I'm sorry I get animated about this, but you see, people have done that to us before and we didn't like it. This is not new to us. Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes in, wants to have a new deal that's going to build the American. You know, middle class, you know, is going to have all of these great programs. But what is the cost? The cost is that for those of us who live in northern cities, our brothers and sisters who are in the south are going to be excluded. They're going to be excluded from Social Security, going to be excluded from unemployment. Us ourselves, we will not be able to take advantage of those housing programs. Were we down with that? Were we like, oh, well, I guess we'll just have to pay the price. No, we weren't. And I know because I wrote about it and I know when people set it down, we were not with that. We were not, oh, well, I guess, you know, it is for the greater good and we'll get us. No, we loudly oppose that. And so that we would then turn around and tell a group of people that they are that are being wiped out, whose families are being wiped out, that they have to support it when we ourselves didn't do it. You know what I'm saying? Like Frederick Douglass loudly, loudly opposed Abraham Lincoln. Like he loudly, loudly opposed. He pushed the whole time. And so, like, there's an element. I don't want to say hypocrisy because I understand how it happens. You know, like, I don't think it's that deliberate. I don't think it's that opportunistic. I think people really are suffering, you know, and I think that's a very, very real thing and I understand it. But look, me as a guy that wrote the case for reparations, right, as a guy that actually lived in that, as a guy who talked to people who suffered under that new deal and were excluded from it and paid for it and suffered the consequence, the lesson for me is that if we get out of this, we're going to get out of this. If we get access to any sort of power, we can't do what was done to us. We need to know this. I just. I don't know why that's such a revolutionary idea. The idea that one person's collateral damage can be someone else's red line. Yeah. This is my red line. This is affecting people that I know. This is affecting family members. I can't just. I think it's because the stakes were so high. And, you know, like, my sympathetic part of it is, yeah, I get it. Like when they, when, look, when Kamala Harris and all them are saying, look, you are countenancing the end of democracy. So, I mean, I, I, it's not like I thought they were exaggerating. Like, I don't like, like the stakes really were the stakes. It is bad. It's very, very bad. And so I get how that disrupts your ability to think about, you know, to think beyond that. But the thing that I can't shake is that within three very short years, the Overton window on this issue has changed. So this idea Ta-Nehisi that you're talking about, I see it in your writing and it's what I love about your writing and it's why to me, you're beyond a writer. You're, you're also an artist. And the, the role of the artist is to question, Hey, does it have to be this way? That's what's in great music. It's, it's whether it's great film or art, it's just, Hey, does it, do I have to, is this gravity? Do I have to accept this as gravity? And my only pushback to that is you have now seen something like APAC become, which was a, a normal thing to be accepted within the democratic party. It is now as divisive as the NRA. And that's only a byproduct of people saying, wait a second, does it have to be this way? Right. Right. I, I think that's right. But when people do that, it is largely inconvenient. Um, I, um, I met with a group of, um, people who had, you know, they weren't part of the protests at Columbia, but they were, I should say, advisors, elder advisors, and they were so beat down and disappointed by some of the stuff that happened. And I was, and you know, they were like, look, we failed. Our movement failed. And I was like, I'm not sure it did, you know, like if the judgment of the movement is how many universities can we get to, you know, divest, you know, of the state that's practicing apartheid. Well, yeah, yeah. But um, I actually think the fact that this is central right now in the democratic party's politics, I don't, I don't think you can separate it from the protest movement. I don't think it would be there if not for that. I don't know that Zorah Mondani would even be mayor. If, if, if not for that, you know? Um, and so I get, it was painful. I get, it was inconvenient. I get that, you know, some folks said some things that they should not have said and put things in ways that, you know, we wish they had not. Um, but again, a lot of this is because people have this kind of halcyon, overly romantic view of what the civil rights movement was like, like it wasn't messy. Like people didn't say and do crazy things then. Like protest. It was just, you know, historically. What do you mean? What do you mean by messy? Like, what do you, what do you mean specifically by that? Like the wins and losses aren't clean or? Well, that people say things that are inconvenient and do things that are inconvenient and do things that people, right? I mean, it's honestly, it's in that essay, you know, like when Coretta Scott King comes out against the Vietnam war in 1964, 65, I think Lyndon B. Johnson at that moment is in the process of being a revolutionary president from the perspective of civil rights, which she did was extremely inconvenient. Right. And some would even argue. Like impractical, tactically, unwise, not smart, radical, well actually, like I would be even like radical as a complimentary way of saying, like I'm saying like that from a pragmatist perspective, what the fuck are you doing? Like you're hurting us. Like you are actually injuring our struggle right now. Do you know how long we have been fighting to get equal rights among the, you know, under the law for all of us, we can deal with this afterwards. Coretta Scott King said, nah, nah, nah. And so what I'm trying to say is. Yeah. People weren't happy about that. That was extremely divisive. When King does it, you know, in, in 68, it is extremely, extremely, people are mad at him for doing that. And I think what happens is now, you know, we sit back and we look at that and we say, wow, that was, that was great. You know, courage as though it was not messy at the time. Right. You know, as though it was somehow popular at the time, even within the movement, you know, it was act that was actively participating. I mean, I think we are living through a messy moment, but. Yeah. You know, after those wins in the New York primary by the candidates who spoke out on Gaza, do you think that that changes the democratic party's calculation in the future at all? Yeah, it has to, I mean, it just has to, it doesn't, doesn't mean that it's the end. It doesn't mean, you know, you know, that, that, that, you know, there's not still a fight to be waged, but yeah, it is. I mean, I am of the time I, I remember it wasn't that long ago that you just didn't even talk about this. It just didn't come up. I mean, it kind of didn't come up in 24, except among, you know, the delegates. Right. You know? It's, it's a very, very incalculable change. And I think the problem is actually the simplicity of it. Look, it's, it's a very, very easy question. Do you think your tax dollars, let's, let's, let's include everything that happened on October 7th. Right? Like let's include all of it. Let's include how horrified, you know, all of us were, you know what I mean? By, by, by the war crimes and everything. Do you think that means that, you know, your tax dollars? Should go to being, you know, to bombs being dropped, you know, or guys, yes or no. Yes or no. Do you think that your tax dollars should go to enforcing a system, you know, in which just taking the West bank and Gaza, you know, you were talking about like the longest occupation, you know, that, that, that we've endured, like, do you, do you think that's okay? Do you think it's okay for, you know, Palestinians on the West bank to go through one, you know, justice system and Israeli settlers there to go through another, is that okay? Yes or no. Yes or no. That is the fact of it. And the problem I think, and not an unsolvable problem for those who think, yes, it's fine. It's like, you have to muddy the issue and you have to like throw all, but when the issue is clarified, it becomes extremely difficult to defend, man. It's really, really, it's actually really, really hard to defend. It doesn't mean it won't be defended, but it's not, it's not easy. As we enter the midterms, these four things are going to get brought up. It's not, it's not easy. It's not easy to defend. It's not, it's not easy to defend. has done anything for me right therefore four, I'm going to stay my ass home. Right. And number four, by staying my ass home and abstaining from voting, that is my way of punishing them. I've never found a clean way to answer all of that, but I've seen family members, friends, you know what I'm saying? Some version of this has always existed in the ether. I understand where it's coming from. As someone who acknowledges both the shittiness of the system, but the power of the individual, what would you say to those people? Well, first of all, the idea that it's not your problem is a fallacy. You're dead wrong. When those Blackhawk helicopters on the South side of Chicago brought ICE folks into those buildings and they separated people, by race, suddenly it was your problem. It was your problem. It is not the case that imperial violence remains imperial. It's just not. I hate even using those terms because it makes it sound like abstract. What I'm saying is when you normalize violence against people, it becomes easier to do violence against people, particularly against people that you've always done violence to. So that's the first thing. The second thing is there is not historically been, I'm just speaking practically, because of the way race works in America. Black immigrant communities have not over generations had the ability to separate themselves from Black people. What I'm trying to say is you think you won't get mistaken for somebody who's Somali-American? You really feel that safe? No, I don't think any Black person actually does. I think we know how this works. And so you think the kind of racist caricatures that Donald Trump and his administrations are making about that Black community, you think it's not going to spread to you? You think it's a mistake that they focus so much on that? You think that has nothing to do with you? I actually know very few Black people who would say, no, it doesn't. I think people get that. I don't think I'm lecturing anybody about that. The second thing is, look, this idea of both parties have screwed me over, they're not your friends. They're not even. I mean, even allies takes it too far. They're tools. They're tools. And your job is to figure out what tool, you know, in this particular moment reduces the most harm against me and my fellow citizens. That's it. That's the only question. That's the question. And I think that's a much easier question to answer when you accept that your politics is not just your vote. Your vote is a tool. Voting, you know, it's civic hygiene. It's brushing your teeth. It's not enough. You don't just brush your teeth. Oh, I'm done for the day. I'm brushing my teeth. I'm good. I don't have to do anything else. I took out the trash. Well, yeah, you got to brush your teeth. You got to take out the trash. It's not sufficient. It's the baseline. It's the baseline, man. It's the baseline. It's the baseline. But we like, I don't know, man, we think of like these elections, like it's the Super Bowl or something. It's not. It's not. It's a singular tool. That you need to use. Yeah, you're right. It's more pragmatic DMV vibes than it is DMV vibes. Then it is like, no, it's not that. It's not that. Get over yourself. Like go vote and then go do something else. Like get over yourself. So that's the second thing, you know, I would say. And the notion that you're punishing people, I mean, probably not, you know, probably not. You know, these people who are running for office, they're going to be momentarily unhappy, but they're going to collect their speaking fees and they're going to be fine. You know, the people that are going to suffer are going to be people, you know, around you. And if you can divorce yourself from the notion that your voting is necessarily in like a tribal statement, like that your voting is like whether you like Beyonce or not, you know what I mean? Or whether you like, you know what I mean? Or whether you're rooting for a football team, whether you like the Giants or the 49ers. It's not that. These people are not your friends. They're not your friends. You're not going to hang out with them. What is your relationship and analysis with America's relationship with celebrity that Jay will solve it? Will Smith will solve it? My favorite soccer player can do. Do you know what I mean? This, this. Yeah. I mean, LeBron didn't do this. You know, why didn't he? And, and it, it falls under this bucket of the power of celebrity, but also it's, it's impotence. How do you make sense of it? I think, um, these people command tremendous amounts of attention. I think, I guess what celebrity gives you, it gives you the ability to, you know, command tremendous amounts of attention. And we probably wish that people, um, people's morality was commensurate, you know, to the amount of attention they commanded, but that's, I think, um, will probably never happen. Um, it's deeply unnatural as a friend of mine once said to have that many people looking at you. And analyzing your every move. Um, look, I don't know how any of those folks feel, but I'll tell you, I am 0.00001% as famous as any of the people you name. And I don't love it. I don't love it at all. You know, um, it is a deeply unnatural thing. If you are happy in your life, relatively, if you like your family, if you like your family, if you like your family, if you like your friends, um, if you like, you know, just being a human being existing in the world, don't ever become famous ever, ever. Cause it's a tremendously, you know, disruptive, you know, experience. And I spent a lot of time where that was like, that was like really upsetting to me, like around between the world and me, it was just, what part was it was upsetting for you? Oh man, it was, um, everything. I mean, everything except a lot of people reading the books, you know, um, everything else was, there was a lot of debate around like, um, what my role was and whether I was good or bad. And a lot of, you know, white people listen to Ta-Nehisi and like Ta-Nehisi and what does that mean? And I just, um, and then, you know, internally, you know, like, you know, certainly among a community of black authors, there was like, okay, well, Ta-Nehisi is getting this amount of attention, you know, is that obscuring other black authors? Man. And I was like, you know, I just want to fucking write. Like, I just came here to do a job. Like all of this other stuff, I can't, like, I don't really have control over, you know, and- Cultural zeitgeist, what this means, what it doesn't mean. I don't know why this is happening. Like I didn't, you know, and, um, I don't want to say I don't want it to happen because I did want the books to go. I wanted people to read. Everybody wants that, you know, I want people to read, but you know, everything that came out that was larger than that, I, I did not particularly enjoy. And, but at a certain point, I don't know how I got here. Maybe it's just, you know, years happened. I just, you know, accepted that shit ain't up to me. It's kind of none of my business, you know, like it really is none of my business. Yeah. I mean, that takes a lot of, um, I don't even, self-discipline, man. I don't know how you're able to be in your own body and then also be out of your body. It's a complete, it's a practice. And I am, it's particularly when I'm under stress, like I fail it, you know, but it is discipline. The best thing about the message is that probably was the most disciplined I was. Like I hadn't, like I had no real idea of what was happening outside, you know, when that book was coming out, you know, I had some sense of it afterwards, but I was really good, particularly doing the book tour about preserving that space. And it was the happiest I ever was, you know, as a, as a writer, you know, with some, you know, sort of public profile. Yeah. That's beautiful to hear. It was great, but you know what was interesting? I think the sheer level of the struggle, because I was out there, the Palestine chapter was going to be, and I knew how ferocious the reaction was going to be to it. I was like, it's no possible way I can listen to this. It's going to destroy my mental health. I did a show and one of the reviews was actively read to me and I had like, had not seen a review. Compact Magazine published a review with the incendiary title, "Why Ta-Nehisi Coates Hates Israel." Helen Andrews writes in part quote, "The problem with Israel is that it shames him. How can it be that the Jews carved their Israel out of the desert and yet no place in Africa, least of all Liberia, remotely resembles Wakanda?" Andrews goes on to say, "Jewish people quote, overcame the hostility of the world to succeed where Garvey and Co. failed. That and not any resemblance to Jim Crow is the reason Coates hates Israel so bitterly." With me now to discuss all of this and more is Ta-Nehisi Coates, author of "The Message." So, wow, that was really racist. It was good to not know, right? Like it was like, you should, I think like, like there, one of the things I've, I've, I've to get out is that all information is not information, you know, like it's some things you shouldn't know. Yeah. Noise versus signal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what people think of you is probably, um, a good thing for you not to know. Yeah. Stay off Reddit. Stay off Reddit. Right. How have you maintained your level of, this is our first time meeting, but even when we were chatting off camera, what I'm surmising and what I'm feeling from you is you have still maintained, uh, your openness to the world. How have you maintained that and not closed yourself off? I don't know. I mean, I'm, I'm genuinely, curious about people um i i god you know my baseline is as a journalist and i got into journalism because i was curious about people i like hearing about people you know i like hearing about you know what i mean your wife and your father-in-law yeah i like you know hearing about you know what it means you know to be from a muslim family you know in india given what's happening with india right like that that is interesting to me it's actually quite fascinating to me and i guess perhaps you know it is even more fascinating to me as i you know go through my own journey and understand myself as part of a broader a broader thing in the world like i'm literally interested in man but look like it's not fake it's not even but that's what i'm saying but so for example that moment and i know you have felt this as a black person in this country hey he's not ready for the convo so don't have the convo right do you understand what i'm saying yeah no i'm with the shit like do you go i've like he's not ready for the convo so don't have the convo right your teacher doesn't want that it's cool yeah how you doing man nice do you see what i'm saying i do you separate those two things you don't want to have the convo so we don't have to have the convo yeah and the fact that you've kept yourself that open to all those convos is a really beautiful thing man and inspiring to me so i just wanted to say thank you you know what it is though i think part of it is um in america here because of what the force of anti-blackness is here in america like you understand yourself as someone who is carrying a weight that nobody else in this country can understand and that's true on some level but what i have been forced with going out in the world is that a my americanist gives me certain privileges and there are places in the world where that weight with a weight of anti-blackness and the privilege are not just not equal the privilege actually outranks it there are places in the world like that and that's a crazy thing to say i did not at the same time as i say that you know anti-blackness is a global force you know we talked about like like um living in paris and i'll tell you like one of the most incredible things about being there is um the city that people see on tv and the city i see and the city i see is the capital of the blackest country in europe the most jewish country in europe and the most muslim country in europe and to interact with people that live under the weight of that to interact with people who live with the complexity of that and they understand my privilege as an american and as an american and as an american and as an american and as an american because that's what they see when i walk down the street right like i'm not seen as part of that right right you know what i mean but to like have my friends to be able to talk to them about like the world cup and how the world cup plays into their you know like their their politics yeah like to be exposed to that like is um i don't i don't i mean it's gonna sound like melodramatic but i don't know how to live without that like i don't and what i mean by that is um um i got a friend and i hope this is still like within the the context of the interview i have a friend sure i have families from uh cote d'ivoire and um but she's french parisian mabula if you're watching this this is your story um but she she recently had a birthday party right and the birthday party was at our house and i went and um went with my wife and they were singing her happy birthday and they sung happy birthday in french they sung happy birthday in jula which is you know a language spoken in cote d'ivoire they sung happy birthday in french they sung happy birthday in jula which is you know a language spoken in happy birthday in uh the creole but the creole of uh the antilles of of the uh you know the french islands and i want to say they sung happy birthday in lingala that's my recollection they sung happy and i sat there with my black american wife and we were like holy shit can you believe like what we're seeing yeah like here we are in this room of like black people you know and they're doing something that like i mean it's hard to put in words what that moment was like like when you're from west baltimore when you're from chicago and you go and you see something like that um and so like to have those experiences um like that that is what my life is you understand i'm saying like that's a huge huge part of my life and so like when you ask me like how do i not become closed i don't want to be separate from that i don't want to not have have have those experiences i don't want to be separated from that i don't want to not have have have those experiences as much horrible things as i saw when i was on the west bank as bad as it was you know walking through jerusalem man you go into heaven and then afterwards they serve you that i don't want to mispronounce it but you know they flip the thing with the chicken and the rice you know what i mean like you're like oh my god and and it's the hosting of it right and so now you're interacting with who they are as human beings because they are not just people who you know the idf is putting you know a foot on it they got traditions they have history they have culture and and you're with them like that's a that's that that is like a beautiful part of my job it's a beautiful part of my life you know so sorry i know that kind of went no that was beautiful and and hey listen man uh thank you for coming on the show thank you for seeing everybody's humanity thank you for your work and um this is beautiful thank you thank you so much thank you thank you so much appreciate it thanks guys the class comes with your hand sorry that story at the end kind of went all over the place this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's bill simmons from the bill simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat gpt 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