Ta-Nehisi Coates on Why Whites Like His Writing

[KamaAina]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/25/why-do-white-people-love-ta-nehisi-coates-work.html

“Why do you think that so many white people love what you write?” asked the award-winning New York Times Magazine journalist, Nikole Hannah-Jones, during a sold-out discussion at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. And the predominantly black crowd—which included the performers Usher and Common—erupted in laughter. Ta-Nehisi Coates was in the hot seat....

Clearly Coates holds no punches. But he says he harbors no malice toward white people, and that he speaks to them from the heart. Coates even took a moment to articulate to the few white audience members that there was no bad blood. “I’m not mean, I don't call people names, I don’t personalize stuff,” said Coates. He emphasizes that all readers deserve respect and honesty, but the reality is that history cannot be rewritten, nor should it be made more palatable. “The history is what the history is. And it is disrespectful, to white people, to soften the history.”

I, too, found myself perplexed by Coates’s white following. Good work is good work. And there is no question in my mind, readers acknowledge that Coates has honed his craft, and meticulously reported and written exceptional pieces—including his 15,000-word Atlantic cover story, “The Case for Reparations.” But when the discussion involves slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism and the prison-industrial complex some white people become “willingly ignorant,” as described during the talk. I quizzically probed a few black friends for their perspective. One friend who focuses on empowerment within the black community suggested that white people gravitate toward Coates because they tend to like one black intellectual at a time, and that intellectual’s narrative is that the plight of black people is caused by white negligence. “I’ve never seen white people embrace the idea of a black man talking about a world in which they are not at the center of the narrative (for better or worse).”

Several others suggested that there is an element of white guilt felt by the audience. They know that whites exploited black people in this country and supporting Coates—as a pre-eminent contemporary black thinker—is the first step toward a path of exoneration.

[villager]

1. Can't some whites just, you know, *agree* with it?

[geek tragedy]

7. Or, even if they don't always agree, find it otherwise worthwhile?

[villager]

9. Exactly.

Why must every interaction between people be based -- or perceived as being based -- solely on what "group" they come from?

[msrizzo]

2. That's an interesting question

But it is more appropriately asked of the white people who enjoy his writing. It's silly to expect him to know the answer to that.

[Warpy]

4. I was just about to write the same thing

It's like those smoky groups of men standing around asking each other what women want without having it occur to them to ask one.

People who read enjoy good writing. Beyond that, people who read and are capable of critical thinking enjoy writing that allows them to see the world through another pair of eyes, through another person's experience. To do both is a gift.

Exoneration? Most white people don't feel the need to be exonerated, not even if they're aware of white privilege. They'd rather just extend that privilege to all people, a birthright of being human.

[femmedem]

3. I'm white, and I read his work because it is grounded in fact

and expressed in poetry. It is truth, told compellingly.

His work gives white allies tools with which to combat the misperceptions, misunderstandings, bigotry and lies we encounter in our own social circles. It also gives white allies a fuller understanding of how those policies have hurt black American's ability to amass wealth, to go to well-funded public schools, and how our own wealth came at black Americans' expense. Most importantly, it gives a fuller understanding of the urgency of existing problems. It is not enough to improve incrementally. The pain is too hard and too pressing for Americans living without white privilege.

It is a great pleasure to have one's eyes opened. There are a lot of white Americans who don't want or intend to be racist. We are ignorant, but that doesn't mean that we want to be ignorant.

[scarletlib]

5. Thank you.

You exactly state how i feel about his writing. However, you say it so poetically. Something that is beyond my ability to express.

I read history and for the last 20 years concentrating on American History and Civil Rights.

I am white. I am Southern. I don't think this country can ever atone for the incredible evil of slavery as an institution and what we did and continue to do to our African American brothers and sisters. Some form of reparation is more than warranted.

[femmedem]

10. Thank you so much for your kind words! nt

[geek tragedy]

6. Dumb question. People like his writing because he is very, very good at it.

[hifiguy]

8. He's smart, thought-provoking and writes beautifully.

That's enough to get me interested in any writer, even when I may disagree with him or her.