Penguin Random House (2024)
This book by Ta-Nehisi Coates has been controversial from the moment it was released. The book is split into three parts. It is written as a lecture to his Howard University students, in a manner similar to his 2015 book, Between the World and Me, which was written as a talk with his son. The criticisms leveled at the author are familiar and will resonate with many, while others will find them excuses, fabricated rationalizations designed to deaden critique and serve as a palliative to undermine alternate views and action.
Coates holds the responsibility of writing, generally, and journalism, in particular, to a high standard. He maintains his refusal to be made dull by taking the comfortable path, a path that would surely provide him with more lucrative writing and speaking engagements. He explains, “We are plagued with dead language and dead stories whose aim is nothing short of a dead world. And it is not enough to stand against the dissemblers. There has to be something in you, something that hungers for clarity. And you will need that hunger, because if you follow that path, soon enough you will find yourself confronting not only their myths, not just their stories, but your own.” He is deliberate in recognizing the temptation towards self-righteousness. He implicitly makes the point of how easy it is to get caught up in justification that permits of injustice. And he does not exempt any oppressed group, including Blacks, from this trap, when he states, “your oppression will not save you…being a victim will not enlighten you…it can just as easily betray you.” This quote is reminiscent of Victor Frankl’s warning to us all when he stated that every nation is capable of a holocaust. Throughout the book, and particularly in the third section regarding his visit to Israel, he is confronted with the legacy of his own background, making a clear analogy between the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government and Jim Crow. This serves as his motivation to do his part as a writer to change the world.
The controversy generated by the book is captured in a recent interview by Tony Dokoupil of CBS News. His starting point was that Ta-Nehisi’s positions would easily fit into arguments made by the most extreme Palestinian terrorist. He goes on to interpret the author’s position as being that Israel has no right to exist. He presses this charge more than once, pushing Coates to agree with it or refute it. Ta-Nehisi counters that Israel does exist, and exists as most nations do, based upon force. He goes on to say that to postulate that any nation has the “right” to exist is to engage in a farcical exercise. He is emphatic that his criticism is not that Israel should not exist, but that no nation has the right to engage in ethnocracy. He then goes on to demonstrate, through numerous examples, that Palestinians are second class citizens in Israel, with many not having the right to walk down streets their ancestors had traversed for generations. He showed how that denial of privilege went hand in hand with the theft of land owned by Palestinians for generations. In another comparison to racist policies of the United States, he compares excuses for stealing Palestinian land (most recently through eminent domain premised upon the discovery of archeological finds of historic significance, which sites are subsequently, given to Israeli settlers to oversee) to our experience with urban renewal. In reading this, I am reminded about how “slum clearance” had its own set of reasons/excuses for displacing people from their homes in our country – whether it was the need for parkland (Central Park) or the advancement of culture (bulldozing San Juan Hill to make way for Lincoln Center), or any number of other rationalizations grounded in the malleable concept of “general welfare.”
Another criticism of the third (Palestinian) section of the book is Coates’ omission of “telling both sides.” Why focus on the atrocities of Israel without also speaking to the fact that it is surrounded by peoples who are hell-bent on its destruction? Here we are reminded of how mainstream media tends to “balance” every issue by simply providing two sides with the opportunity to make their cases. This simplistic approach is bad enough, but it does not end there. Its amorality lends legitimacy to potential evil; it boils every issue into two distinct points of view; it minimizes opportunities for compromise; it simplifies and enhances “branding” by cable news programs, and it excludes the opinions of those who add confounding (i.e. real life) complexity to any issue (similar to how a producer once explained that Noam Chomsky fails to get air time because he lacks “concision”).
Coates makes clear he was aware of not, and purposefully avoided, mentioning challenges faced by Israel. He believes one of his jobs as an author and journalist is to give voice to those without a voice. This is based upon the principle that, as he writes in his book, “When you are erased from the argument and purged from the narrative, you do not exist.” For him, given the lack of media reporting from the Palestinian perspective, these are a people who are largely invisible and lacking a voice.
He goes further. He writes how readily we accept the proposition that Israelis are bringing civilization to barbaric Palestinians, as opposed to engaging in genocide. This charge of genocide brings the strongest reaction and rebuke. As stated by the American Jewish Committee, Israeli actions in Gaza cannot be seen as genocide since Israel is at war with Hamas, not with the Palestinian people. However, this is an argument that loses substantive validity when you consider that of the 43,000+ killed since the start of the war in Gaza, about 70% are women and children, the result of targeting residential buildings, hospitals and schools in about 80% of the strikes against Hamas.
Coates goes on to describe how readily we accept that our support for Israel should be unconditional since it is the only democracy in the region. He criticized this proposition, analogizing it to American democracy, when our democracy – or at least our ability to vote – was restricted by race and gender. There are, of course, other bromides we readily seem to accept uncritically. Reading this book made me think about how readily we accept deadly missiles sent into foreign countries when we are assured that these weapons of war only kill “enemy combatants.” I also ponder how easily we seem to accept the excuse of killing innocent civilians when told that they are not the targets. Instead, we are told blame rests with the “cowards” who hide behind civilians. And since they do, civilian casualties are unfortunate, yet legitimate, collateral damage. This would be similar to being killed by police, if they decided to shoot right through us in order to kill a terrorist or other hostage taker. I am not sure many of us in the United States would agree with that proposition if we found ourselves to be easily disposed of expedients in the elimination of a threat. But that gets to another point, namely, that there has been some success in viewing Palestinians as less than human. Of course, if we are able to separate the value of our lives from those who are abused, any rationalization for segregation, discrimination, even elimination, becomes possible.
To conclude, giving voice to the voiceless is not the equivalent of seeking the elimination of those with a voice. As in this country, criticism from within is often equated with hating our country. Instead of being labeled “self-hating Jews,” however, those who denounce criticism in the U.S. label such critics “communists,” “fascists,” or worse. Criticism, when done to expose injustice and reinforce a professed ideal, should be seen as an act of love – one intended to improve, not destroy. Ta-Nehisi is a poet. Other of his writings have been described as poetic. But for him the beauty of well-formulated, professionally composed prose is not enough. As he wrote, “beauty must be joined to politics…style possessed must meet struggle demanded…” He meets this challenge in his most recent book and thinking, open-minded, objective people will appreciate him for it. Close-minded, binary thinkers possessing a Manichean mindset and worldview will continue criticizing him for provoking thought and facilitating critical thinking at odds with favored, expedient and status-perpetuating prevailing perspectives.