of our generation
theatlantic.com
Is Ta Nehisi Coates the James Joyce
Hudson Kelly
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Jason Green
>IT IS INSUFFICIENT TO STATE the obvious of Donald Trump: that he is a white man who would not be president were it not for this fact. With one immediate exception, Trump’s predecessors made their way to high office through the passive power of whiteness—that bloody heirloom which cannot ensure mastery of all events but can conjure a tailwind for most of them. Land theft and human plunder cleared the grounds for Trump’s forefathers and barred others from it. Once upon the field, these men became soldiers, statesmen, and scholars; held court in Paris; presided at Princeton; advanced into the Wilderness and then into the White House. Their individual triumphs made this exclusive party seem above America’s founding sins, and it was forgotten that the former was in fact bound to the latter, that all their victories had transpired on cleared grounds.
Jaxson Jones
Coates is such a shit writer. Back when he used to participate in the comments section of the Atlantic, I talked with him a few times (mainly about film), and he was so obstinate that he saw the complete and whole truth that he was completely unwilling to consider any other perspective you would present him - even if it didn't contradict what he had to say!
Anyone who acts that sure of himself in truth is not, and much of his writing exists more as Coates convincing himself of his rightness than it does in making any broader sense or points.
But the zeitgeist of modern American liberalism propels him into prominence.
Hudson Bennett
(I'll amend my statement a bit - he's not actually a shit writer on a mechanical level, but he is not a good thinker)
Hunter Robinson
Agreed. His prose is fair, but his thinking is so profoundly steeped in afropessimistic ideology that he is all but incapable of producing a worthwhile thought.
Back before he achieved the celebrity he now has, I met the guy at a chat session before he gave a talk at my school. He was much more reasonable then, and even conceded that a post-racial society would be desirable when I asked... something I doibt he would address head on today.
I almost feel he is a victim of his own success- he's become an icon in a way that must limit one's ability to be objective.
Parker Gonzalez
If you pressed his lips against a glass ceiling would he stick?
Jayden Cooper
I'm not even going to say he doesn't raise good points, but at the end of the day- what would he have white people do? What does he want?
Even if I felt bad for systemic racism etc, I didn't choose to be white, and it seems unreasonable for me to devote a lot of energy to repentance.
It should be enough that I am not myself a racist.
Just my two cents.
Ryan Reed
Blackie Black doesn't like not being president anymore. Who would have guessed?
Adrian Wright
That's actually well written though
Landon Hill
The first sentence was particularly profound. I mean, when is America going to get a President who's *not* a white male?