Author Ta-Nehisi Coates on how to understand book bans, censorship, and the attack on imagination

Ta-Nehisi Coates talks about how to understand the current wave of book bans and censorship as part of a long war over African American literacy.

Coates will deliver the Arthur Miller Freedom to Write lecture at the PEN America World Voices Festival on May 11, 2023.

[HollieRoseBroderickPoirier]

Brother this moved my heart Thankyou so much

Reading and writting is so deep

So beautiful
So knowledgeable
And needed in our lives

Not obscured or edited to fit form

But to be free
To read
To write
To learn
To share

Thankyou

[tamnovak]

"Imagination is more important than intelligence. Imagination encircles the world, intelligence is limited." ~ Albert Einstein

[BookwormtoBookworm]

I preach this to my students regularly. People just don’t understand.

[constancewalsh]

I pause the video to read Lincoln's statement (3:17). And with the understanding that human minds are composed of many facets and complexities, often contradictory, there is no confusion in my own mind as to the bottom line of the person delivering this statement, for we live with its results, and for many, 'live' is not the accurate word.
Between the World and Me, fell into my hands serrendipitously as the best things often do, and I was weeping within minutes of reading. Although less than half-way through I wonder if and when I will see in writing how jealous of his Black and Brown and Red and Yellow brothers is the man (gender specific) who believes he is white . Especially of the Black man. There, I have said it; an elder female who belives she is white but not in every part, who in her youth ached with envy of the beauty and intelligence of her dark-skinned sisters, of their intact instincts, of their intimacy together, of their humor and music and bodies than could dance from inside. I still ache. My brownish-red beloved, whose nature does not exclude, reminds me that even light-skinned people once were tribal and came from the Earth and lived with the Earth, with customs rather than rules. This is true, is it not? but I'm hard to convince.

[shawbrothers]

I can’t write while the world is burning…it’s getting hard yall

[shermangriffin]

He doesn't think. He lies. You can discredit every statement.

[befirmbefair]

Mr, Coates,

Have you repented of your evil worldview?

[SteveLeicht]

Two racist wrong views do not make right.

[jerrybrown]

"A bullshit salesman with a mouth full of free samples". Tell me what books you've been unable to read in 2023? This dude is preaching "safe spaces" and intellectual curiosity st the same time? Nah