That gay blade is like 50. I realize that this might sound odd saying this in the same thread in which people talk about his being gay, but he's got the body of 25 year-old. He's in great shape.

I just looked it up and he's 51!!!! Black don't crack indeed.

What is this "sizable number" and how did you arrive at it, from what evidence?

Anything else you want to share?

Photo finish between Hyde Park and Madison.

My aunt moved her family there when I was a child. All of my cousins that moved there all married white women.

Big fight in Black Intelligentsia: Coates v. Cornell West. Coates deleted his Twitter acct.

Big fight in Black Intelligentsia: Coates v. Cornell West. Coates deleted his Twitter acct.

The disagreement between Coates and me is clear: 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. So it is with Ta-Nehisi Coates’ worldview.

Coates rightly highlights the vicious legacy of white supremacy – past and present. He sees it everywhere and ever reminds us of its plundering effects. Unfortunately, he hardly keeps track of our fightback, and never connects this ugly legacy to the predatory capitalist practices, imperial policies (of war, occupation, detention, assassination) or the black elite’s refusal to confront poverty, patriarchy or transphobia.

In short, Coates fetishizes white supremacy. He makes it almighty, magical and unremovable. What concerns me is his narrative of “defiance”. For Coates, defiance is narrowly aesthetic – a personal commitment to writing with no connection to collective action. It generates crocodile tears of neoliberals who have no intention of sharing power or giving up privilege.

When he honestly asks: “How do you defy a power that insists on claiming you?”, the answer should be clear: they claim you because you are silent on what is a threat to their order (especially Wall Street and war). You defy them when you threaten that order.

Unfortunately, Coates’ allegiance to Obama has produced an impoverished understanding of black history. He reveals this when he writes: “Ossie Davis famously eulogized Malcolm X as ‘our living, Black manhood’ and ‘our own Black shining prince.’ Only one man today could bear those twin honorifics: Barack Obama.”

This gross misunderstanding of who Malcolm X was – the greatest prophetic voice against the American Empire – and who Barack Obama is – the first black head of the American Empire – speaks volumes about Coates’ neoliberal view of the world.

Coates praises Obama as a “deeply moral human being” while remaining silent on the 563 drone strikes, the assassination of US citizens with no trial, the 26,171 bombs dropped on five Muslim-majority countries in 2016 and the 550 Palestinian children killed with US supported planes in 51 days, etc. He calls Obama “one of the greatest presidents in American history,” who for “eight years ... walked on ice and never fell.”

It is clear that his narrow racial tribalism and myopic political neoliberalism has no place for keeping track of Wall Street greed, US imperial crimes or black elite indifference to poverty. For example, there is no serious attention to the plight of the most vulnerable in our community, the LGBT people who are disproportionately affected by violence, poverty, neglect and disrespect.

I know that I can come off as hating the old guard but I lost respect for West a long time ago.

Coates made his reputation with his reparations essay, and if that's all he ever does, it was significant. Unfortunately, it seems that may be all he ever does. I'll give the man credit for writing beautifully though.

I'm a big fan of John McWhorter. The fact that we're the same age likely has something to do with that. This is an interesting listen. I'd recommend it for all white liberals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jeiPKh7jEA

West is 500 times the intellectual Coates is. Not saying he's right, but there's no doubt about that.

Seems like he's calling Coates a "what's in it for me?" intellectual, the kind of person who camouflages self-interest with a sentimental attachment to a cultural or political figure or who confuses such a sentimental attachment with righteous rebellion. It's almost like he's calling Coates a Millennial, though Coates isn't much younger than I am.

I think if I could live for 500 years, I would see everything as a generational struggle. Contexts change and people fight for different shit. Nonetheless, Coates rubs me the wrong way.

Coates made his reputation with his reparations essay, and if that's all he ever does, it was significant. Unfortunately, it seems that may be all he ever does. I'll give the man credit for writing beautifully though.

I'm a big fan of John McWhorter. The fact that we're the same age likely has something to do with that. This is an interesting listen. I'd recommend it for all white liberals:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jeiPKh7jEA

Coates's essay on reparations was fantastic. The idea that we'd be paying for segregation and Jim Crow, not so much slavery, is key. The rest of his work . . . it's like fodder for white trust-funders and upper-middle-class black people from NYU with afros or dreads.

[ He has always come across as a better educated Mel Reynolds to me.

Adolph Reed once wrote an essay called, I believe, "What Are the Drums Saying?" about the phenomenon of the black public intellectual who interprets black culture on behalf of the Democratic Party. He wrote it as a rejoinder to Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates, but I think Coates has assumed that mantle.

EDIT: here's a scan: https://libcom.org/files/ReedWhatAreThe ... Booker.pdf

McWhorter is interesting, but sometimes he seems to go too far to prove he's not a liberal.

Why? I'd be interested in knowing if you get the chance.

His ideas sometimes have made him look conservative and sometimes leftist. I guess that makes sense, given his earlier commitment to philosophical pragmatism.

His Obama rhetoric is really off-putting to me because it isn't principled. It comes from a place of hate and bitterness. I was shocked and really disappointed that he had a crab mentality. He and Michael Eric Dyson were the 2 black men I loved reading or hearing speak as a teen and young adult.

but from his perspective, how could the end of the Obama presidency be met with anything but hate and bitterness. From his perspective it was a lost opportunity with another opportunity probably not presenting itself in his lifetime.

Since I'm using analogies in this thread, Obama is the 86 Bears.

My favorite black finger-waver was Manute Bol.

Well, he's kind of an "old head". He can't really help that and it's part of what I like about him. When young guys throw "Tom" around, they seem not to realize that the older guy has seen/lived through a lot worse than they ever have. Anyway, McWhorter isn't exactly Larry Elder or Thomas Sowell. I'd call him a reasonable old school liberal, which I guess isn't considered liberal at all anymore.

Interestingly, I heard Elder bust Don Lemon up for calling him an "Uncle Tom". Elder said something like, "Yeah, you didn't come right out and say it, but you know what you meant and everyone else does too." Elder then went on to sneer at the concept of "white privilege", suggesting it was something that guys like Don Lemon make up so they can say, "Look at what a special Negro I am to have overcome all of it." I don't agree with Elder there but it was funny and I think Lemon deserved it. Also, I love that Elder tweeted this:

I think you may be mixing your Africans.

His Obama rhetoric is really off-putting to me because it isn't principled. It comes from a place of hate and bitterness. I was shocked and really disappointed that he had a crab mentality. He and Michael Eric Dyson were the 2 black men I loved reading or hearing speak as a teen and young adult.