Anyone who swims with the NED isn't doing their mind any favors, that money eats the soul. Coates, James Baldwin play a pernicious role of sitting in an elite corner washing the dirty laundry in limited public view, so the West can point to it's competitors as failing to do the same (ignoring that literature and methods of resolving conflicts in other cultures are rarely translated for viewing in the West, again, unless they serve NED values). When it comes to driving a solution, they are about as illuminating as a Hollywood movie on Malcom X.
You may have managed to be a lot more succinct in making a similar point as I was ;-)
You lost me at James Baldwin, though... I'll give you that he became a somewhat elitist artist living in Paris... I do think he actively participated in resistance activities and put his body on the line. As far as I know he never sucked up to power. Also his writing and orating is simply in a different league from Coates, or most anyone, for that matter, but that may be subjective.
I use taking NED money as my guiding star. The NED was paying for his powerful language. Nelson Mandela was an honest revolutionary with far higher price, but in his case they got him by corrupting his children.
We may be talking past each other. The NED (National Endowment for Democracy) was founded in 1983. James Baldwin died in 1987. So he published all of his impactful works well before the NED was even a thing.
Perhaps you take the NED as shorthand for establishment funding more generally - even so, I am not sure what specifically you are referring to. Certainly Baldwin did make good money with his writing and art.
Sure, a part of the elite eventually set on creating a bizarre, neutered version of MLK (well after he was assassinated) literally cast in white marble, but Baldwin? I know that this is a tangent on the topic (Coates) but did you have something more specific about Baldwin in mind?
I was using Baldwin’s arc as a predictive description of my view of Coates, which you may take it as you wish. NED is a modern term which modern readers will understand for the same function as CCF and Ford Foundation. Ask your self if there is any concrete change you can point to Baldwin have brought about? You may not reach the same conclusion as I, and good on you.
"But Zionism is nothing like Black Nationalism taken to the Nth degree. Zionism is a form of colonialism, and Black Nationalism is an anti-colonial ideology"
Ta Nehisi Coates may see that differently as his own worldview has followed a similar trajectory to that of the American Jewish writers he met at the Atlantic magazine socials.
Let's remember that until the 1960/70s, Jews in the US were generally considered racially different from "Whites" and there were plenty of signs saying "no Jews, n-word, or dogs allowed on the premises". Initially American Jews and their organizations played an important part in the civil rights movement. As they were admitted to the "White" club, alas, Jewish-American organizations largely stopped their anti-racist organizing and moved to the right instead. [The dismay of the remaining African American civil rights organizations on that lack of solidarity is now commonly referred to as "Black Antisemitism".]
So to Ta Nehisi Coates, an American Jew subscribing to Zionism may effectively mean embracing that version of your nationalism that is admitted into the power structure.
Likewise, Ta Nehisi Coates sought admittance to the establishment clubs, filling the important role of the articulate Black writer embracing neo-liberalism in the wake of Obama. Crucially, the neo-liberal worldview takes most of the substantive values of Black Nationalism off the table: economic inequality and, indeed, anti-colonial solidarity; What is left is "identity politics", the area where Ta Nehisi Coates was allowed to play in and excelled at not overstepping.
So Coates did not miss "many of the important points that these [Black Nationalist] intellectuals were making" - he managed to un-see them, a service for which he was the darling of what passes for the establishment intellectual circles.
Likewise, his version of Black Nationalism was no longer anti-colonial: everyone expected him to either ignore or fall in line with the Empire's new pet project. It is commendable that he did not: it is immensely hard for someone who has learned to un-see so much to get a glimpse of the inhumanity and insanity of the "Pro-Empire Project" and be shaken to the core of their being (which I do think he genuinely was).
This may resolve the tension of Justin's setup to his excellent dissection of Coates (I'm so stealing the bit that the "writer" should identify with their mission, not their tools ;-)
It also explains why Coates still has a long way to go with the healing process and learn to re-evaluate when the establishment media are at least somewhat accurate, highly selective, or outright lying.
I watched that part of the interview with a fair bit of cringe. I think he should also talk to (or read) some of the religious anti-zionist Jews who have a very different interpretation of the colonisation of Palestine. I've found Rabbi Elhanen Beck - a Jew whose family was displaced from Palestine by zionism (albeit voluntarily) - to be an interesting voice to listen to on this.
Anyone who swims with the NED isn't doing their mind any favors, that money eats the soul. Coates, James Baldwin play a pernicious role of sitting in an elite corner washing the dirty laundry in limited public view, so the West can point to it's competitors as failing to do the same (ignoring that literature and methods of resolving conflicts in other cultures are rarely translated for viewing in the West, again, unless they serve NED values). When it comes to driving a solution, they are about as illuminating as a Hollywood movie on Malcom X.
You may have managed to be a lot more succinct in making a similar point as I was ;-)
You lost me at James Baldwin, though... I'll give you that he became a somewhat elitist artist living in Paris... I do think he actively participated in resistance activities and put his body on the line. As far as I know he never sucked up to power. Also his writing and orating is simply in a different league from Coates, or most anyone, for that matter, but that may be subjective.
I use taking NED money as my guiding star. The NED was paying for his powerful language. Nelson Mandela was an honest revolutionary with far higher price, but in his case they got him by corrupting his children.
We may be talking past each other. The NED (National Endowment for Democracy) was founded in 1983. James Baldwin died in 1987. So he published all of his impactful works well before the NED was even a thing.
Perhaps you take the NED as shorthand for establishment funding more generally - even so, I am not sure what specifically you are referring to. Certainly Baldwin did make good money with his writing and art.
Sure, a part of the elite eventually set on creating a bizarre, neutered version of MLK (well after he was assassinated) literally cast in white marble, but Baldwin? I know that this is a tangent on the topic (Coates) but did you have something more specific about Baldwin in mind?
I was using Baldwin’s arc as a predictive description of my view of Coates, which you may take it as you wish. NED is a modern term which modern readers will understand for the same function as CCF and Ford Foundation. Ask your self if there is any concrete change you can point to Baldwin have brought about? You may not reach the same conclusion as I, and good on you.
Incredible piece. You have outdone yourself.
"But Zionism is nothing like Black Nationalism taken to the Nth degree. Zionism is a form of colonialism, and Black Nationalism is an anti-colonial ideology"
Ta Nehisi Coates may see that differently as his own worldview has followed a similar trajectory to that of the American Jewish writers he met at the Atlantic magazine socials.
Let's remember that until the 1960/70s, Jews in the US were generally considered racially different from "Whites" and there were plenty of signs saying "no Jews, n-word, or dogs allowed on the premises". Initially American Jews and their organizations played an important part in the civil rights movement. As they were admitted to the "White" club, alas, Jewish-American organizations largely stopped their anti-racist organizing and moved to the right instead. [The dismay of the remaining African American civil rights organizations on that lack of solidarity is now commonly referred to as "Black Antisemitism".]
So to Ta Nehisi Coates, an American Jew subscribing to Zionism may effectively mean embracing that version of your nationalism that is admitted into the power structure.
Likewise, Ta Nehisi Coates sought admittance to the establishment clubs, filling the important role of the articulate Black writer embracing neo-liberalism in the wake of Obama. Crucially, the neo-liberal worldview takes most of the substantive values of Black Nationalism off the table: economic inequality and, indeed, anti-colonial solidarity; What is left is "identity politics", the area where Ta Nehisi Coates was allowed to play in and excelled at not overstepping.
So Coates did not miss "many of the important points that these [Black Nationalist] intellectuals were making" - he managed to un-see them, a service for which he was the darling of what passes for the establishment intellectual circles.
Likewise, his version of Black Nationalism was no longer anti-colonial: everyone expected him to either ignore or fall in line with the Empire's new pet project. It is commendable that he did not: it is immensely hard for someone who has learned to un-see so much to get a glimpse of the inhumanity and insanity of the "Pro-Empire Project" and be shaken to the core of their being (which I do think he genuinely was).
This may resolve the tension of Justin's setup to his excellent dissection of Coates (I'm so stealing the bit that the "writer" should identify with their mission, not their tools ;-)
It also explains why Coates still has a long way to go with the healing process and learn to re-evaluate when the establishment media are at least somewhat accurate, highly selective, or outright lying.
But wait, on your Instagram profile bio, you call yourself a writer 😉😅
Jokes aside, great article thanks for tackling TN Coates.
Interesting graphic (Countries invaded by British military). The US is quickly catching up to the Brits.
Liberal scribe Ta-Nehesi Coates wakes up on Palestine
https://rumble.com/v5j31kd-liberal-scribe-ta-nehisi-coates-wakes-up-on-palestine.html?e9s=src_v1_upp
I watched that part of the interview with a fair bit of cringe. I think he should also talk to (or read) some of the religious anti-zionist Jews who have a very different interpretation of the colonisation of Palestine. I've found Rabbi Elhanen Beck - a Jew whose family was displaced from Palestine by zionism (albeit voluntarily) - to be an interesting voice to listen to on this.