Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, Between the World and Me, won the National Book Award. He’s writing the (awesome) Black Panther series for Marvel. He’s a certified MacArthur Genius. And he’s a writer at the Atlantic, where he just released a blockbuster cover story based on hours of interviews with President Barack Obama about the role race played in the president’s upbringing, his White House, and the 2016 campaign.
I spoke with Coates for my podcast this week. The first half of our conversation is political: It’s about Coates’s interviews with Obama, his perspective on American politics, the way his atheism informs his worldview, why he thinks a tragic outlook is important for finding the truth but, at least for nonwhite politicians, a hindrance for winning political power.
The second half is much more personal: It’s about his frustrations as a writer, his discomfort with the way Between the World and Me was adopted by white readers, his surprising advice for young writers, his belief that personal stability enables professional wildness, his desire to return to school, his favorite books.
You can listen to the full discussion on iTunes, on Spotify, on Soundcloud, or anywhere else fine podcasts are found (and, hey, subscribe to The Ezra Klein Show while you’re there for more discussions like this one). What follows here are excerpts from our conversation, edited for length and clarity.
Ezra Klein
If I can read into this ongoing debate you’ve had with President Obama, you’re arguing that there are some things in American politics and American life that may be counterproductive to believe even if they are true.
There is an upbeat story about racial progress and unity that is not only more pleasurable to believe but is more effective to believe if you want to, say, elect an African-American president.
And then there’s a [more pessimistic] story that is better at predicting day-to-day events, at least right now. But it’s a story that nobody wants to hear. To me, the last year or two has been a collision of these two visions — and I think it’s the central tension of the piece you’ve written.
There’s something about seeing America’s best racial instincts followed by its worst racial instincts in this way. It’s very hard to keep both stories, and both countries, in your mind at the same time. So where are you, emotionally and intellectually, after struggling through this article?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I’m a big believer in chaos. The history of this country did not necessitate a Donald Trump following a Barack Obama. But it did lay the conditions for it to be possible. You can’t be surprised that it happened.
I find it hard to say that Obama’s optimism was “wrong” in a global or moral way. But at the same time — and I think this is what you’re teasing out — I don’t think someone who looks at race and racism the way I do, or has had the experiences I’ve had, could ever be president of the United States. Or would even think to do that.
And, look, religion did not come up in our conversations [with Obama]. But I think religion undergirds a lot of this. This sort of idea that, “At the end of the day, it all works out.” Or maybe, to put it less condescendingly, that, “We’re on the right side of history, and the arc of the moral universe bends to justice.” That’s just something I don’t share. The sense of destiny that “it will,” I just don’t share it. There’s ample evidence it might not. That’s where I come down.
I don’t think you have to believe America is chained to its past and is necessarily doomed to reenact it. But when you study civilizations, it tends to be true that history has a weight, a gravity — if you’re going to go in an opposite direction, you need to consciously exercise an opposite force. And I don’t see us doing that.
Ezra Klein
There’s already a tremendous pull to say, “America is going to be okay.” I see it in a lot of viral columns and articles; I feel it myself: the sense that America has institutions and we’ve absorbed worse than this before and everyone is just being hysterical.
But America can be okay without Americans being okay. When you’re talking about the time frame of the most powerful country in the world, things will probably keep grinding forward. But when you go to the nation-state time scale, you erase the people who will lose their health insurance, or see their parents deported, or get sent to a war that shouldn’t have happened.
America can be okay in the 50-year view with a lot of people suffering in the meantime. Obama says this a lot — I think he says this in your piece — that even though the arc of history bends toward justice, it can still zig and zag and go backward. But when I hear that, it can sound a bit like a fast-forward button: Those zags can be real bad.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It’s very convenient to see progress from slavery to abolition finishing up in the civil rights movement and then a black president.
But you have to look at the time between abolition and the civil rights movement: a concerted, white supremacist domestic terror campaign. A 100-year shadow war waged against individuals. And that was the basis on which democracy was maintained for a big section of the country.
How do you overlook that? Every time I hear the invocation of the New Deal, and people wanting to go back to that, I can’t help but hear the basis on which that government was established — the solid South. People who I’ve profiled, in my own journalism, were told to be quiet or be killed, they saw their relatives killed.
You can’t wipe that away. The people in that period didn’t ask to be foot stones in your road. From an atheist perspective, life is precious — whenever someone dies, it’s the end of their personal universe. The idea we should hand-wave away the deaths that I believe will come as a result of this election — I just can’t do it.
Ezra Klein
I want to go back to something we talked about a few minutes ago — that someone with your ideas couldn’t win the presidency. This is, I think, the central argument of your piece: that Obama has a unique background and perspective on racial progress, that is maybe not the norm, maybe not even correct, but was intrinsic to him becoming president.
But something I was thinking about reading your piece — and I think you actually say something similar to this — is that by the same token by which you couldn’t have someone run for office with your ideas who is an African American, the fact that you could have someone run for office with Donald Trump’s is really telling.
Barack Obama could never have run on the slogan “Make America Great, Finally.” Michelle Obama said in 2008 that it was the first time she was proud of her country, and that was treated as a gaffe; it had to be disavowed. Then Donald Trump literally ran for president arguing he had lost a certain pride in his country. The idea that a black man or woman could have run for office with Donald Trump’s personal history as a husband, as a human, is, to me, the most telling piece of this.
There is a way in which Obama had to be the best among us. And I mean that putting aside his policies. I’ve just always found him to be an admirable human being, even when I disagree with him. And Donald Trump has not had to be the best among us to win this.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
There are people who say racism wasn’t a factor here because there are people who voted for Obama who then voted for Trump. But Obama had to be Obama to get those voters. There is no black equivalent of Trump that is contending for the presidency.
David Brooks wrote this column about how we don’t know how racism played into this. He said, if you’re working-class and you’re white and you live in those areas, maybe you’d take a chance on Donald Trump; it doesn’t mean you endorse all of his ideas.
As my buddy said, is that what you said to the followers of Louis Farrakhan? No, nobody says that to the followers of Louis Farrakhan. No, they blasted him as an anti-Semite, which he is, and say how can people follow this bigoted message.
That’s the ultimate testament — that you could be Donald Trump and be president. There is no black person who could have the kind of vices Donald Trump and, hell, be governor. Maybe you could be mayor somewhere.
Coates’s debate with Obama on reparations
Ezra Klein
In the piece, you talk about a discussion you had with the president on reparations. And he gives this very nuanced answer, where he says, look, when I talk to Malia and Sasha, I say, “Yeah, we have responsibility for things we didn’t do wrong.” But that’s not going to sell politically.
To quote what you wrote in your piece, “I found it interesting that (Obama’s) optimism does not extend to the possibility of the public’s accepting wisdoms — such as the moral logic of reparations — that the president, by his own account, has accepted for himself and is willing to teach his children.”
One question I have for you after these conversations with Obama is whether you think there’s a double argument there — do you think his public view on these issues is different from his private view?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think there’s a contradiction. Why are you optimistic about the boundless ability of the American people to endure Trump but not optimistic about their ability to see politics in a more sophisticated fashion? Why are you not optimistic about the ability of everyday Americans to accept the wisdom you’d teach to your kids?
At that point, [Obama] wasn’t being abstract — he was saying, “We are responsible for our history, that there’s a weight of history, and that we’re responsible to that.” And he’d teach his kids that.
In his defense — he cited various examples across history and said, “It’s not clear to me this [reparations] works.” That, to me, is contradictory to what I see as him seeing: something special about America. I’m hesitating using “American exceptionalism,” because he’s pushed back against that a bit. But he sees something at least peculiar and particular about being American.
Extending that logic out, if this is the first truly enlightened republic — the oldest democracy in the world — if you are that pioneering, how can you cite other countries that don’t have that sort of record? Where is your exceptionalism now?
Ezra Klein
After talking to Obama for four hours, what did you learn about the president that you didn’t know otherwise?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
He’s really smart. He’s really smart. And I guess I knew that, but what is said about him often is that he’s professorial. But that gives you this picture of a guy giving a lecture. My perception was that he was literally thinking it out as he was talking — that he didn’t have canned, prepared answers. I was shocked by how much he wanted to talk about these things. People say the president runs away from these issues, but I don’t think that’s true.
I think he finds the specific situation of black people in this country to be of great intrigue and interest. He’s not putting it on — that speech in 2008 about race, he wanted to make that speech. What really surprised me was that he wanted to talk about this stuff with me.
Ezra Klein
Oh, I wasn’t at all. I think you’re underplaying your role in this discussion. There has been a conversation that had to be engaged during the Obama administration about race in this country. And he’s been one of the people driving this discussion. And you have emerged as one of the key others.
Having been there for some of these discussions, I think your critique stings him, and he’s someone who responds to criticism. And it’s my impression that the criticism he hates, the stuff he really feels — you saw this when he used to attack “the professional left” — is that he’s frustrated by attacks from people who he feels he’s on their side but that they are not taking seriously the drawbacks of their own position or what they’d do if they were in his chair.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
That’s true. It came up not with me but with activists — I think in his eye he sees himself as, in some senses, among them. Running the gamut from drone strikes to LGBT issues to Black Lives Matter.
At one point in the interview, he said, “What, you think I don’t care about black people or gay people? Or because I don’t want to do it?” I think he thinks he deserves more of a leash than he gets.
And this is why I give him all the credit in the world: because he’ll do that, and then he’ll pull back and say, “It’s good they’re doing it.” He does feel that they should recognize he’s on their side, and they should recognize that, but if they stop doing it we might begin to go easy on ourselves.
Ezra Klein
It’s funny what you said a minute ago, that he thinks of himself as part of the activist tradition. Because I hear that and I think, of course he is. Donald Trump is an activist; Bill Clinton was an activist. I recognize that these lines get blurry. I recognize that at some point you change categories. But if you are somebody who has gotten into politics to make dramatic change, and you eventually become president, not only would you see yourself as an activist, you would see yourself as the best damn activist in the country!
It’s so easy to forget these people are people, and they see themselves in the context of their own story, the story they’ve been telling themselves for years. Obama comes to office in the context of George W. Bush. And it’s only a year later where you get very serious criticism of him from the left. And I think he’s sitting there, saying to himself, you let this guy get elected, and now you’re telling me I’m not a liberal because I had to bargain away the public option to pass health insurance for 20 or 30 million people?
I’m not saying he’s right. But I’ve always thought it’s important to understanding him, and a lot of folks in power. We look at them as the state, and it is hard for them to see themselves as the state.
Coates: “I’m the guy, I guess, who white people read to show they know something”
Ezra Klein
Something I think you’re good at, as a writer — something I routinely make personal vows to be better at and then fail — is communicating your own uncertainty.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But that’s gotten harder to do.
Ezra Klein
Why?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Because nobody wants to hear it. I used to blog, as you used to blog. And blogging, as a form, is open to this real-time, ongoing learning process. That went away. But in addition to that, as your profile rises, people say you must have this high profile because you know, because you’re an authority.
I didn’t write too much during this election cycle. One of the reasons I didn’t is because I didn’t want to play this oracular role. There was no space to figure it out, to think about it, or go through the arguments if you’re writing. If you’re writing something critical about [Bernie] Sanders, then you necessarily want Hillary Clinton — that’s the only lens through which it’s interpreted.
There’s no room to tease out, say, in my case specifically, what it means that the representative of the left tradition in the Democratic Party rejects reparations. No room to tease out what that means. But then what am I doing? I’m just making pronouncements. I’ve become, in the most vulgar sense, a pundit. I’m not open to having my mind changed, I’m not trying to figure it out; I’m not out here curious and exploring. I am standing on a rock, sitting on a throne, making pronouncements about what the world is. And that is so boring. It bores me to tears.
This piece, I had a ball doing it, because to the extent that my opinions are in the piece, they’re pulled way back. This is the Obama show. It was this opportunity to pick up the pad and the recorder and just learn, to get out of the way and just learn. Okay, I disagree with you, but how did you come to that? That’s still a question I’m interested in answering.
A few months ago, somebody got upset because Between the World and Me had no citations of women in the book. In fact, there’s only one citation in the book, and it’s of a woman who is a historian at Duke! But it didn’t matter whether that was true or not, because you’re a signpost of something. You become a symbol.
And that has kind of happened to me in my career. And I don’t know what to do about that. I’m the guy who, I guess, white people read to show they know something. And that’s what Between the World and Me is now. It’s used as a symbol for something — what do you do when that’s the case? That’s not what you write for. How do you get back to learning and exploring when you get success?
Ezra Klein
How do you feel about that with Between the World and Me?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
It’s disturbing.
Ezra Klein
Did you expect that from the book?
Ta-Nehisi Coates
No, no, no. First of all, I didn’t expect the book to be so successful. I just didn’t. Writers have to prepare themselves to not be read by a bunch of people. I had all my defenses up for that. I had no defenses for the idea that the biggest question about The World and Me would not be about my friend Prince Jones, who got killed; not about the communication between myself and my son; not about growing up in West Baltimore; but, why are so many white people reading this book? Literally whole articles written about what is going on here.
You feel yourself trying to write from an African-American perspective that is not fully represented, and in your mind, to the extent there is any audience, you see yourself as writing for African-Americans who are like you, who are somewhat frustrated about things — the book is for them, in that sense, it’s for that feeling. It’s not that you don’t want other people to read it, but then the entire book becomes like that, about what white people think about it. Even as you try to write away from it.
I saw this SNL skit a couple weeks back called “The Bubble,” where you could retreat from Trump. And a signature of the bubble was a young white woman reading Between the World and Me. And that’s what it means to be in the bubble.
The black people in Harlem, in West Baltimore, in the South Side of Chicago, and in Washington, DC, who inspired that book, who empowered that book — they’re erased. They have no meaning for the interpretation of the book, and what matters is white people reading the book. I’m not sure how to make sense out of that.
Ezra Klein
It’s interesting, someone from the outside may look at you and that book and say, “He’s attained so much power.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates
But that’s not what it was for!
Ezra Klein
But I hear you saying is that you’ve also lost control of it.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
That’s right — it was never for that. We are creeping in on, like, a million books, a ridiculous number. I didn’t write the book thinking about that.
My friend got killed, and I was deeply angry about that for a long time. I had an encounter with an African-American president that I was thinking about. I read James Baldwin and wanted to express something. But power? Nah.
I’m getting personal now, but I’m 41 and have a 16-year-old kid and a wife I’ve been with for 18 years. What would I do with that power? What am I supposed to do with that? I’m not going to get out of the town and get drunk, or hold out copies of Between the World and Me and hit on 20-year-old women. What tangible thing is supposed to come from that power? I don’t sit on boards and control who gets access to what; that’s not who I am.
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