I also am alarmed by this blindspot in the intellectually newly anti Zionist. To imply that the oppressed might become oppressors is to ignore their cultural attributes ,faith, and moral code to the contrary.
And insidiously it creates a false complication in the imagination of liberation.
One of the things so horrific about this Holocaust, why it generates so much empathy in the west vs say darfur or Rwanda, is precisely because its victims are not aiming to become oppressors. In stead they are ordinary people seeking to get on with their lives. They value education, culture, openness.
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.
The ANC was never a revolutionary organisation and themselves became neoliberal capitalists. They were seduced by South African businessmen and, yes, the NED played a role in that.
"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.
Thanks for sharing the primary sources on Palestinian culture and ideals at the end of the article. I haven’t read them yet. If what you say is correct, then Hamas has a good strategy for winning not just the war but the peace afterwards. I’m an American who is decolonizing my mind, and I don’t know if I could’ve exercised such discipline. I’m not Muslim. If you win through force of arms but become the enemy in the process, then the empire has sabotaged your victory.
I’ve seen the Hamas footage. I see no dead babies, no mass rape, no genocide, some slain soldiers, prisoners taken (reservists out of uniform), and some bloodied and dead civilians. It’s ugly but that’s war, that’s probably what a military operation looks like; probably American roadblocks in Iraq were equally indiscriminate, if not more. A war crime is when civilian deaths are disproportionate to military gain. I see a military operation where unfortunately Israelis decided to have a party next to an open air prison, ignored intelligence and were trounced on the battlefield. But I still don’t want to play the colonizer’s game. They pretend to be perfect. Why do we have to pretend? Why can’t we own any mistakes? They don’t, they’re liars and murderers. That’s the only question I had. Thanks for helping us to win the information war.
Wonderful piece. Thanks for continuing to develop my thinking!
This is a very minor point but the thing that I have never seen TNC address is *how* and why he was so wrong for so long. He just happily jumps back into talking his nonsense so authoritatively! It speaks to a certain liberal relationship to knowledge that I haven't fully thought through yet but is funny to watch play out.
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.
Nat Turner's people did some things that could be called atrocious, like killing the entire families of a few wealthy slaveowners, but that is to be expected during such rebellions. Like Mark Twain said, everybody always talks about a few years of Red Terror but never mentions centuries of White Terror. What's amazing about Hamas is how little of that sort of thing they actually did.
Of course, Coates never mentions that some of Turner's followers were poor whites, or that Nat Turner's Rebellion is one reason the idea of the white race was invented by those same slaveowners in the first place.
Thank you for articulating this! I was so saddened by Coates repeating atrocity propaganda WITHOUT QUESTION!
It made me realize that if it weren't for you and Jon Elmer I might have done the same? I don't think so, but I started following Refaat Alareer thru EI, and that led me down the path to you. I can't remember ever accepting the zionists' stories at face value, but maybe I would've.
You don't know how many ppl you are reaching. Thank you.
Good point, if we can’t see resistance to low intensity genocide on October 7th and find solidarity on that day with the oppressed against the greatest barbaric military ever, then we remain part of what keeps the monsters in power through this political moment when the politics are waiting to be reborn unless the orange rapist appeals to you forever.
I also am alarmed by this blindspot in the intellectually newly anti Zionist. To imply that the oppressed might become oppressors is to ignore their cultural attributes ,faith, and moral code to the contrary.
And insidiously it creates a false complication in the imagination of liberation.
I totally agree with this succinct point. Thank you.
One of the things so horrific about this Holocaust, why it generates so much empathy in the west vs say darfur or Rwanda, is precisely because its victims are not aiming to become oppressors. In stead they are ordinary people seeking to get on with their lives. They value education, culture, openness.
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.
Joel Whitney talked about some of this in "Finks." Peter Matthiessen was butt-hurt for being criticized about this. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1841541907
Thanks for the comment. It's a reminder that this book is in my anti-library stack and needs to be moved up.
The ANC was never a revolutionary organisation and themselves became neoliberal capitalists. They were seduced by South African businessmen and, yes, the NED played a role in that.
NED?
"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.
Incredible piece. You have outdone yourself.
Thanks for sharing the primary sources on Palestinian culture and ideals at the end of the article. I haven’t read them yet. If what you say is correct, then Hamas has a good strategy for winning not just the war but the peace afterwards. I’m an American who is decolonizing my mind, and I don’t know if I could’ve exercised such discipline. I’m not Muslim. If you win through force of arms but become the enemy in the process, then the empire has sabotaged your victory.
I’ve seen the Hamas footage. I see no dead babies, no mass rape, no genocide, some slain soldiers, prisoners taken (reservists out of uniform), and some bloodied and dead civilians. It’s ugly but that’s war, that’s probably what a military operation looks like; probably American roadblocks in Iraq were equally indiscriminate, if not more. A war crime is when civilian deaths are disproportionate to military gain. I see a military operation where unfortunately Israelis decided to have a party next to an open air prison, ignored intelligence and were trounced on the battlefield. But I still don’t want to play the colonizer’s game. They pretend to be perfect. Why do we have to pretend? Why can’t we own any mistakes? They don’t, they’re liars and murderers. That’s the only question I had. Thanks for helping us to win the information war.
Thank you again for this excellent piece.
Wonderful piece. Thanks for continuing to develop my thinking!
This is a very minor point but the thing that I have never seen TNC address is *how* and why he was so wrong for so long. He just happily jumps back into talking his nonsense so authoritatively! It speaks to a certain liberal relationship to knowledge that I haven't fully thought through yet but is funny to watch play out.
Good point. Did he have to go to hebron to discover apartheid in Israel? What happened to going to the library.
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.
Been a joy to witness.
This is worth a watch too:
https://youtu.be/LbPJPt77Vbo?si=ac5e8ZShpnW2khAx
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.
Nat Turner's people did some things that could be called atrocious, like killing the entire families of a few wealthy slaveowners, but that is to be expected during such rebellions. Like Mark Twain said, everybody always talks about a few years of Red Terror but never mentions centuries of White Terror. What's amazing about Hamas is how little of that sort of thing they actually did.
Of course, Coates never mentions that some of Turner's followers were poor whites, or that Nat Turner's Rebellion is one reason the idea of the white race was invented by those same slaveowners in the first place.
Thank you for articulating this! I was so saddened by Coates repeating atrocity propaganda WITHOUT QUESTION!
It made me realize that if it weren't for you and Jon Elmer I might have done the same? I don't think so, but I started following Refaat Alareer thru EI, and that led me down the path to you. I can't remember ever accepting the zionists' stories at face value, but maybe I would've.
You don't know how many ppl you are reaching. Thank you.
This is excellent. I hope Coates with his pulpit reads it.
Good point, if we can’t see resistance to low intensity genocide on October 7th and find solidarity on that day with the oppressed against the greatest barbaric military ever, then we remain part of what keeps the monsters in power through this political moment when the politics are waiting to be reborn unless the orange rapist appeals to you forever.