Ta-Nehisi Coates came to prominence as a writer in the 2010s at a time when so-called unapologetic Blackness was in vogue.
The conceit behind this term — “unapologetic” — has always seemed to me like Black people’s defiant response to many white people’s judging eyes. To be unapologetic is to remain stoic in the face of judgment. But to me, Coates has always represented something different.
Not so much unapologetic Blackness — the kind that seems deeply concerned, albeit disgusted, with white perceptions of Black people. But, instead, “unquestionable” Blackness. The kind that reverses the white gaze and tells people from this privileged group: Now it’s your turn under the microscope.
He’s not stoic. He’s righteously confrontational.
That’s why I think Coates and his work have been so summarily targeted by conservatives. He’s a fierce social critic and — even worse for right-wingers — an extremely creative writer who knows how to write about race and class with frankness and seriousness, and without relying on bigoted assumptions about Black people.
So today, on Day 3 of “Black History, Uncensored,” The ReidOut Blog’s monthlong series focusing on creators targeted by GOP book bans, Ta-Nehisi Coates gets the spotlight.
His 2010 piece in The Atlantic rebutting a New York Times article on the “culture of poverty” supposedly afflicting Black people speaks to the reversal of the white gaze I mentioned earlier.
He wrote:
When we talk “culture,” as it relates to African-Americans, we assume a kind of exclusivity and suspension of logic. Stats are whipped out (70 percent of black babies born out of wedlock) and then claims are tossed around cavalierly, (black culture doesn’t value marriage.) The problem isn’t that “culture” doesn’t exist, nor is it that elements of that “culture” might impair upward mobility.
He continued:
It defies logic to think that any group, in a generationally entrenched position,…
Read the full article here
