flugendorf | Words written over on Facebook about Ta-Nehisi Coates

If I were a better man, and if it were earlier in the day, and if I were stoked with coffee, I would write a great deal. But for now I will say only that I am a great fan of Ta-Nehisi Coates, and I will continue to be.

I will say also that when you are accused of having ignored a long list of subjects, and you respond very politely with a list of links to essays in which you have written about many of those things, *that is the perfect way to answer*; it is what should be done. It should make a difference.

(If you have also always said that you were not an expert on everything, and if you have not gone deep into some things giving that as a reason, this should also count for something.)

If having given such an answer makes no difference in how things play out, what hope is there for any of us? That way of answering is the best way to answer. Examination of the answer, which of course no one could do instantly, would be the, I want to say the natural, but at any rate the proper response.

And beyond that: Any of us, no matter what we think, or what we say or write, could be hacked to pieces rhetorically by detractors because we *haven't* talked about some things. None of us has talked at length about everything important in the world, or even talked at length about all the things we do ourselves think are important. If such a theoretical hacking apart by detractors did in fact happen on this ground, with maximum moral contempt, who among us could survive?

A set of rules in which this could happen is one that privileges the ravenously righteous detractor. It is not one in which people can take the writer's or speaker's role, and talk as well as they can about their chosen topics, and be judged, fairly or unfairly, but at least on what they did say.

And when the denunciation for this is both immoderate and careless of strict accuracy - and when the group that pays attention to the initial denunciation branches out into weird accusations of an endless evil lust for adulation, on the part of one who has shown few if any signs of this, who is only, undeniably, prominent and well-known... Envy can be a force of human nature. Hate the tall poppy. Among the people who hunger for justice - which is sometimes any of us, in good ways and in ill - there can be demons that say that anyone big is another oppressor.

It would appear that Ta-Nehisi Coates was very taken back by the attack from someone I believe (to judge by his answer) he respected greatly, Cornel West - and by the sheer breadth and vigor of the assent to West's condemnation.
(On his old blog, for years, he was exemplary for listening and engaging with criticism and contrary views. It was a great comments section. But I don't blame him from choosing to disengage from what he found coming down on him yesterday.)

Though I looked at all of them, there was not time to open and read all of the article links that Coates posted in his answer, although I had read many of the articles before. His answer is no longer available. But when West says, for example, that Coates never criticized President Obama, or that Coates has ignored drone strikes, when Coates *has in fact written about both* - I say that having gone over to The Atlantic and done some reading, which was not hard to find at all - this was not merely a disagreement about opinion or attitude. This was a hatchet job without regard for truth or for anything but the injury of the target.

The way this played out yesterday has really depressed me. There was a savagery and indecency to it that I wish had remained a missing note in things.
And a right response done the right way should count.
And Ta-Nehisi Coates as a person has stood out for me as a person who tries to do a certain category of things right.

I suppose now that if it were earlier in the day I still wouldn't have done much better than this, really.

I'll stop by saying that Coates is worth reading. In fact, he's worth seeking out - his books and his articles at The Atlantic.