As with all things TNC, this was a hard piece to excerpt, so it’s best just to go read the whole thing. Jason Parham, at Gawker:
… By the time we meet, on a Tuesday afternoon in Midtown, he is gracious and candid as ever, despite having just come from another interview. “I feel freed,” he will later tell me, a wide smile cutting across his face. Over the course of the next half-hour, we discussed Coates’ early days at Howard University, traveling abroad, obligation, publishing’s lack of diverse gatekeepers, and what, if anything, it means to understand the fullness of history…
Gawker: I want to begin with one of my favorite lines from the book. You write: “Your Uncle Ben became a fellow traveler for life, and I discovered that there was something particular about journeying out with black people who knew the length of the road because they had traveled it too.” There is a lot in there—community, love, endurance. What’s the length of your road been?
Ta-Nehisi Coates: We went to Paris in the summer of 2013. I have a friend Ben, and he and his wife; they’ve always been a little bit ahead of me and my wife—just very mature about seeing certain things about the world. And for years, they had been doing these house-swaps. They would go to France or wherever, and a family would come live in their house. They were even doing it at a time, living out of the country and taking their kids with them, when I wasn’t even conscious that that was something that I wanted, or should want. Even though I knew that I wanted my son to see the things.So they were in Paris the same summer we did it, and these are like black folks that came up like me. So it’s one thing to go there with people who have expectations for certain things, but it’s another thing—and I had other friends there with me, too; Jelani Cobb came over for a little while, and a buddy of mine, Tom Fisher, a doctor in Chicago, came for about a week—and so, for a good amount of time in Paris, I was with black folks who as children could not really imagine that. It was a shared experience of, What the fuck? And then, at the same time, particularly for me and Ben, because we had been history majors at Howard, and came up in this Afrocentric tradition—in fact, everybody I just mentioned came up that way— where you are kind of scornful of the West, and to actually be there and say, This is badass. This didn’t make it in the final draft of the book, but I met Ben one night in front of Hôtel de Ville, and there are buildings like this all over Paris. Just beautiful fucking buildings. And I was just like, Ohhh. But then you had to balance that. You had to balance that with knowing how much wealth they plugged out of Haiti, for instance…
Speaking of beauty, and seeing things for the fullness of what they are, early on in the book you talk about your time at Howard, and how you discovered the majesty of black people while on the Yard. Can you talk more about your time there, and how it shaped your years after that?
I grew up around black people, but I didn’t grow up around black people like that. Howard pulls from the entire black diaspora. And black people, being human beings first and foremost, there is a great variation among them. And to see all that variation united under one thing, and yet still be individuals—I had never seen anything like that. It gave me a great respect for how full the black experience really was. How much it really meant, and how big it was. Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There’s cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There’s an incredible amount. It’s an incredible thing, and I first saw that at Howard…
There are two terms invoked constantly throughout the book: “body” and “plunder.” There is a physicality to both, a totality in each when you use them, that is terrifying. I’m interested in this idea of choosing the word “black body” as opposed to saying, “the black mind” or “the black soul.”
I think the body is the ultimate thing. The soul and mind are part of the body. I don’t think there is anything outside of that. Your physical self is who you are. Some people feel that that is reductionist, but I don’t think it is. It’s just true…
You refer to “the language of survival” as “a myth,” writing: It “helped us cope with the human sacrifice that finds us no matter our manhood. As though our hands were our own. As though plunder of dark energy was not at the heart of our galaxy.” That line—as though our hands were our own. I stopped the first time I read it. It’s the realization that you are not in control and won’t ever fully be in control.
You’re not. You’re a minority in this country, and you have to acknowledge that. A great deal of our political dialogue—and, again, that is fine as an aspiration, but observing history—believes that individual people, minorities, can move history. But that doesn’t stand up to history. The efforts of individual minorities have been very, very important, but minus the larger culture seeing their own interests in those efforts, you don’t get anything. Your hands are not your own. It’s not just on you. And yet you have to struggle anyway. We’ve observed that. It doesn’t give you the right to go home and lay down…
Ruckus
When I read TNC I am in awe. He is a man of not only his time but a man of all time. He is a black man and writes from that perspective, but what he writes is about all of us. His writing is alive.
srv
This fetishness over celebrity writer exposes. It’s so vain.
It seems this society is more interested in them than in what they wrote. Back in the day, did people spend 10X the ink interviewing Gore Vidal than reading him?
Anne Laurie
@srv:
Quite probably! I’m a major Vidal fangirl, but he was such a great interview that he practically kept the prime-time talk show alive in the 1960s/1970s. And his literary feuds were epic & notorious, too also. He wrote many, many pages defending his career as a “public intellectual”, mocking academics & lit’ry poseurs who considered themselves too refined to mix it up with Jack Parr & Bill Buckley for the amusement of late-night shut-ins. Were he a generation younger, I’m sure Mr. Vidal would be a twitter star and YouTube celebrity!
John Revolta
@srv: “Back in the day”, famous writers such as Twain and Dickens made way more money doing public appearances than they made selling books. Get real.
A guy
I read it. Looks like classic frontier gibberish.
Mandalay
@srv:
You are making it way too complicated.
His publisher is currently promoting his new book, so Gawker gets a free interview with a famous writer in return for plugging the book, which will increase sales. Everybody wins.
I am sure Gore Vidal, and writers long before him, did the same thing.
lamh36
srv
@John Revolta: Dickens and Twain were stage performers. TNC is not. Reality much?
lamh36
Everytime I see a post from TNC from white folks I admit, it makes me think about the burden of being the “one Black friend” of so many.
Good for TNC for being willing to be that “one Black” person for some people…but personally, it’s gets tiring being the “one representation” of your people that some folk like to reference.
Makes me wonder if my non-Black co-workers ever use me as an example of their “one Black” friend/acquaintance that they discuss away from work.
Do you realize how tiresome and stressful that feels? Seriously, there comes a point where one gets tired of having to be “that person”…for some folk..
John Revolta
@srv: Attaboy. Keep shiftin’ those goalposts.
Mandalay
@lamh36:
He is arguably our greatest living non-fiction writer. Are we supposed to ignore him unless we are black?
How about you giving a plug here for other African Americans writing about race that you you think are worth reading?…
Ajabu
@lamh36:
This comment is for you personally although others can, and will, read it:
Back in the late 60’s when the Black Power Movement was in full sway, lots of white folks wanted to talk to me (primarily because I’m mixed race with vaguely European features – I hate that but there’s not a damn thing I can do about it except be completely Afrocentric. And I am…)
Anyway, I was the “comfortable” one to talk to and talk they did. The only profundity I heard amidst all that bullshit was one young white dude who told me, “I always get the impression that Black people know something I don’t and they’re laughing at me.”
How profound. I told him it was because our families had been in their homes for generations and we know what they’re about. They haven’t spent any time in Black homes.
My wife is dark brown. She generally gets to be the “Black friend.” She’s gracious, I’m not.
Love your comments…
dogwood
@lamh36:
As a white women in her 60’s, I don’t know how you would feel about my views on Coates. I’ve, read him consistently for seven years. Watching him develop as a writer and and a thinker has been a great experience for me. I admit that some of my feelings about Coates are maternal in nature. As an old woman I have on many occasions when reading a piece of his thought about his parents and how proud they must be of him. I look forward to reading what he writes in the future. He’s sure about what he knows right now, but he’s also sure that he doesn’t know everything. That makes him an interesting writer and human being.
schrodinger's cat
@lamh36: The near reverence with which TNC is mentioned in these quarters and many like this one does get kind of tiresome. I didn’t much care for the long piece he wrote dissing the President when Obama won reelection. He has gotten more one note as he has become more famous. I liked him better when he was just a blogger, guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish. His writing was more varied and interesting and he didn’t take himself so seriously.
Brachiator
@srv:
You seem to be confusing the real Twain with Hal Holbrook.
And your insinuation that Dickens was a stage performer who knocked out a few books now and then is laughably stupid.
lamh36
@Mandalay: if it was as much of an interest for some, then they’d seek it out on their own no…
why do Black folk need to point out to you what good Black authors or writers or pundits?
Am I supposed to be the personal shopper for white folks ALL THE TIME?
Can you imagine how tiresome it gets being a librarian for folk who can use the google just as much as you can?
MBunge
@Mandalay: He is arguably our greatest living non-fiction writer.
TNC is a very talented writer but…seriously?
Mike
Karen S.
@lamh36:
You beat me to it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
srv
@Mandalay: You seem to be confusing Mark Twain and Samuel Clemens. You seem to incapable of understanding men who did both.
Perhaps you and Revolta can debate how any of this is relevant to TNC.
Brachiator
@Mandalay:
I don’t think that this is remotely true that he is the greatest living non-fiction writer, but the larger point is that he has rapidly become the only black voice that people know or listen to.
This is not only absurd, but also points to a sad laziness in the media, which has always tended to function as a gatekeeper of nonwhite opinion. So you had Tony Brown and Black Journal on PBS, and later Tavis Smiley and sometimes Cornell West as the Designated Official Voice of Blackness. Henry Louis Gates was in the running for a while, but he since he was also a scholar and history professor, he had other goals and declined the position.
Steve from Antioch
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yep.
I saw some interview he did recently after his last book and I guess he met with Alice Walker or Toni Morrison or somebody and there was talk about “the torch being passed” and I thought, “For fucks sake, this guy is going to be even more insufferable now.”
Mandalay
@lamh36:
Now I see exactly where you are coming from. I won’t be bothering you again.
Mandalay
@Brachiator: Well of course opinions on the qualities of writers are subjective, but I think he would be generally regarded as being in the very top tier regardless of my opinion.
And West and Smiley don’t come close in terms of being able to communicate and explain ideas persuasively, for me at least.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: I don’t understand how he does it either. I’d go mad.
I have to say, though, I was floored at the people who were telling me about his reparations essay, people I really thought would never listen to something like that. He reached a lot of people that others can’t. So good for him.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Right. When given a choice, be a dick. Makes sense.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Before we talk about Tavis Smiley’s communications skills, how’s about we talk about all those corporate logos he’s got affixed all over his suit? Wells Fargo, Wal*Mart, McDonald’s….
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: I certainly understand how undignified we “majority” white people can be, leaning forward hopefully looking for pre-digested instruction like baby birds waiting to be fed!
On the other hand, there’s this part of the interview…
It’s a delicate balance. I try not to lean too heavily on “tell me what I should know, my Friend of Color”, but I would like to expose more excellent non-white thinkers & writers to the (other) mostly white people who read Balloon Juice.
And I count on you guys to let me know if I’m veering too far in one direction or the other!
Admiral_Komack
@Mandalay: Quit hogging the joint.
Pass it and let everyone get a hit.
KS in MA
@Mandalay:
Really, you should be able to find a decent syllabus for African American Literature/History/Studies 101 on the web. Go read everything on it. Repeat for 201, etc. What’s so hard about that?
phoebesmother
Even on Balloon Juice ….
Is it just me noticing it at last, or are more “white liberals” becoming annoyed with black people? I see it in this thread.
I was sad when TNC stopped allowing comments when he was discussing race. But his work was attracting a little band of “reasonable” trolls like JohnJMac (I think that’s his handle — I see him on other sites peddling the same ideas, same tone). TNC was obviously tired of educating the same white folks over and over. And the result is that all the other articles and blogs at the Atlantic that touch on race have comment sections quite infected with tiresome racists lecturing the white authors about “black on white and black on black crime” and similar tropes.You can smell the white supremacy and racial realists. TNC was a fierce and sometimes impatient moderator but kept the ad hominem and fruitless back and forth to a minimum.