That's sort of what Naomi Klein said in the article I posted yesterday. Well
actually, you can read the article to see what she really said. But her point
was that There are complex issues with both international and national
implications and those issues are what we should be looking at, rather than
this rather superficial disagreement between two black intellectuals. For my
part, I have found good insights in what both men say and write.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2017 10:25 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Ta-Nehisi Coates Quits Twitter After Public Row
With Cornel West
For me, the bottom line here is proof that we are complex creatures.
West or Coates? Both men are...now hold onto your hats...both men are Human
Beings. As such they are about as complex as any other two folks you might
point out.
Remember, we are all involved in a bigger struggle than over the differing
views of two men, no matter how bright. But those who would be our Masters
will use every trick in their Game Book to divide us and turn us against one
another. So if I had the attention of West and Coates, I would say, "Come on
fellows, agree to disagree and get on with the bigger battle."
Carl Jarvis
On 12/23/17, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Ta-Nehisi Coates Quits Twitter After Public Row With Cornel West By
Jamiles Lartey, Guardian UK
22 December 17
Harvard scholar called Coates 'neoliberal face of the black freedom
struggle'
Award-winning author Ta-Nehisi Coates has deleted his widely followed
Twitter account after a public row with fellow intellectual Cornel West.
Coates tweeted: "peace y'all. i'm out. I didn't get in it for this,"
to his
1.25 million followers before quitting the social media site.
The Harvard scholar, author and activist West described Coates as "the
neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle" in a Guardian column on
Sunday, launching a furious debate about the two men in black,
activist and liberal circles.
West - a leading and outspoken American philosopher, activist and
social critic - argued that Coates, who has arguably become the most
popular and widely read black intellectual on race in a generation,
writes from a worldview that "fetishizes" white supremacy. According
to West, that preoccupation clouds Coates' perception of other factors
that shape modern society.
"Any analysis or vision of our world that omits the centrality of Wall
Street power, US military policies, and the complex dynamics of class,
gender, and sexuality in black America is too narrow and dangerously
misleading," West wrote. "So it is with Ta-Nehisi Coates' worldview."
The specific trigger for West's Guardian column was Coates' newest
book, We Were Eight Years in Power, a collection of essays from the
Obama presidency, which takes a generally celebratory tone about the
44th president and his administration.
"Coates praises Obama as a 'deeply moral human being' while remaining
silent on the 563 drone strikes," West wrote, spelling out his long
list of grievances with Obama from the political left.
Before deleting his Twitter account, Coates had responded to West's
column in a thread of tweets pointing out occasions when he had, in
fact, criticized Obama over some of the issues, specifically US
militarism, that West raised.
In an October conversation with the Intercept's Jeremy Scahill, for
example, Coates said of Obama and drone warfare: "Maybe the presidency
in terms of what it is, we shouldn't think of people who have that job
as great, ever.
Like, it's not possible to be great. Implicit in it are certain things
that are not possible to salute. Are not possible to reconcile."
In another now unavailable tweet Coates pointed to pieces he had
written that critically examined how Obama addresses black audiences,
on "the specific oppressions of black women", and on abortion and choice.
"In general, I think the public itself can sort this out. But I don't
expect people to be familiar with everything I've written and said. So
here's just a bit of it," Coates wrote, pointing to times he had
engaged with most of this issues that West accused him of ducking.
The debate also pulled in other high-profile black intellectuals like
the New Yorker's Jelani Cobb who said that "no one is above critique",
but that he was "frankly embarrassed by West's threadbare commentary".
Cobb pointed to West's fervent support for Bernie Sanders, who had a
tough time connecting with black voters and was hesitant to discuss
race, as an example of West's hypocrisy.
"In your obsequious stanning for Bernie you must've overlooked the
part where he dismissed the idea of black reparations," Cobb wrote.
"Moreover, those demands were kept alive in the black nationalist
grassroots tradition
- not the interracial left you so idolize."
This is hardly West's first public fracas with another high-profile
black intellectual. In 2015, fellow author Michael Eric Dyson wrote in
the New Republic that West's attitude toward Obama had as much to do
with personal feelings of betrayal as it did actual political differences.
After actively campaigning for Obama in the 2008 campaign, West "felt
spurned and was embittered" by Obama, and that marked his shift from
supporter to ardent detractor.
West has since accused Obama of political minstrelsy, insinuated that
he was a race traitor and called him a "neoliberal opportunist" and a
"Rockefeller Republican in blackface".
This kind of "not radical enough" ideological pugilism has long been a
feature of the black freedom struggle. West v Coates is eerily
reminiscent of arguments that date back over a century.
Historically speaking, as black intellectuals gain any degree of
institutional credibility or popular acceptance, they face criticism
from more radical thinkers of traitorous capitulation. The same type
of charges were once levied by WEB DuBois at Booker T Washington, and
by Marcus Garvey at DuBois. A generation later, Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X were famously caught up in a similar dynamic.
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