'The Message': Ta-Nehisi Coates on Power of Writing & Visiting Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine

We speak with Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose new book The Message features three essays tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, book bans and academic freedom, and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The Message is written as a letter to Coates's students at Howard University, where he is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. As part of the research for the book, Coates traveled to Senegal and visited the island of Gorée, often the last stop for captured Africans before they were shipped to the Americas as enslaved people. Coates also visited a schoolteacher in South Carolina who faced censorship for teaching Coates's previous book, an experience he says showed him the power of organizing. "That, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don't," Coates says of the community's response.

[greo]

Im glad to live in the same moment of human history with this beautiful human.

[rebellerevelle]

At first James Baldwin supported Israel because of the way it was presented to him. Then after he went there and saw the reality of Palestinians in the occupied territories, he became a vocal critic of Israel. Of course they used the worn out tactic of slandering him as being antisemitic, but that didn't stop him from speaking the truth.

[kaylieweir]

A voice of truth and compassion to cut through the madness

[Spirit-Truth]

Thank you for having this Brave, Amazing man that speaks so much Spiritual Truth to All People!!

[noemiarias]

He is a beautiful soul. God bless him and protect him from harm and evil🙏❤️

[fontomfrom]

Good job to DN! A far better interview!

[sand..]

A wonderful speaking, fare away from every narratives Allahumma Barik May God bless this intellectual man. My best greetings and wishes

[justsomecyborg]

thank you ta-nehisi coates. you are amazing and doing such important work. 🙏 thank you.

[ghostagee]

"The other". Even Sartre said it was one of the hardest thing to undo or get rid of.

[jallohdantaba]

That is why you should travel to see the realities

[Mina-vrkw]

Now this is an interview! It provided depth and understanding of his point of view .

[OneBlurryLens]

Will T’Nahesi Coates get an even broader audience on the MSNBC major programs in the evening weekday shows and on the world news tonight programs on the three major networks?
The message needs to reach a broader audience.
And a more deep dive, detailed discussion needs to be broadcast in order for the majority of people to understand what is going on.

The information he provides is not new and has been reported on countless times over the decades by other public intellectuals and writers.

[workingTchr]

Ta-Nehisi's remarks about being asked by the Israeli solder what his mother's, grandmother's and great grandmothers religion was is what's at the heart of this whole tragedy. Read what Wikipedia has to say about "race". It's a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT. It's not objectively real. The Israeli solder sees the world in terms of what "race" (or "people") you belong to --Jewish, Arab, Persian. etc.. so that was important for him to know. But the truth that science has known for 100 years(?) is that there is no such thing as "a race" or "a people". There's just the human species and the individuals of that species. Objectively, there is no "African people" or "Jewish people." All this killing is over BS in our heads.

[besmaadawi]

It’s doing my heart good listening to this beautiful man

[WinslowCrockwell]

Coats is 💯 percent correct. I see this in our entire media landscape. It always feels to me like a prison. The macro story which was already a lie a told over and over again with the express purpose of recreating reality. Dehuminzing, dismissing, and reconsidering how power should be distributed. Thank you sir for your work!
Appreciate you.

[Ruthene]

How can i encourage him to write about the catocin furnace iron workers who were stolen for their skilled labor

[castelodeossos]

Drawing an equation between I's treatment of the Palestinians to Jim Crow is like drawing a comparison between an assault rifle and a catapult. It is a trivialisation of I's brutal annexation of Palestinian land. Jim Crow did not involve almost a century of routine murder by the authorities, routine demolition of homes, routine theft of land by force, routine arrests followed by disappearance into dungeons with torture, did not involve checkpoints set up to delay ambulances and other movement between one place and another, and more. Some of those things may have taken place under Jim Crow but not as a matter of routine policy over almost a century.

[FM-lnsb]

Amazing that Coates calls out Kamala's violence and vileness and Amy scoffs at it and avoids discussing Kamala's role in the genocide. Only mention Trump...like good DNC liberals.

[Cloudchopper-xr]

Ta-Nehisi was celebrated and admired by Democrats as long as he was writing and speaking about the race issue only. The when he took on the Palestinian issue and pointed out the apartheid and genocide of Israel the Left changed its tune in a second flat .According to this interview it looks like he support Kamala yet Kamala stand solidly for Israel and approved more shipments of bombs and money to Israel. Somehow that does not make sense.

[leviashanken]

There is a strange relationship between ridiculous and lethal that should be studied!