Video: Ta-Nehisi Coates Discusses Fear Of A Black President

Can anyone explain to me what Trayvoning is? I don’t want to drive up its google hits.

as usual for The Atlantic, nothing about class.

really poignant in a lot of ways but also kinda naive. i can’t really imagine obama ever being in a solid enough position to address racial disparities head on without getting voted out, impeached, or shot up. this is amerika. the first black senator elected during reconstruction faced some of the same stuff. yeah it was a milestone but he had to tread soft as a mofo too. give us a couple more black presidents and i think we can start to handle business

I don’t think the author is saying the speech caused attacks on Trayvon’s character, I think he is analyzing the sequence of events. If there is anger in the article, I think it is anger at the facade of progress in race relations and race in the media. I think the first video you posted enforces this point even further, specifically when Coates says he didn’t think Obama should pursue that line of thought at the risk of not pursuing health care reform. I think the piece is less about Obama himself and more about the static state of race politics during the Obama presidentcy, due in part to Obama’s race, and the author’s frustration with the kind of glossing over that must be done because Obama is black (i.e. Shirley Sherod’s case vs. James Crowley’s arrest of the Harvard professor). I think the authors gets to this point best when he says “Race is not simply a portion of the Obama story. It is the lens through which many Americans view all his politics”. I guess I read the article more as being about “lens through which many Americans view all his politics.”

Here’s my 2 centimes. It has to be said that the text is magnificently written and that the theme and hypothesis is beautifully expressed. Impressive craftmanship. Kudos. Big kudos. Then I have to declare my perspective. I’m living in Scandinavia and have Ethiopian background. There is definitely nuances in this that I probably don’t get.

Regarding the Angry-ness
I didn’t feel or interpret the text as a rant at Obama for not expressing racial issues or concerns enough. To me, as a foreign observer, it clarified the boundaries of race and highlighted the insecurities “white america” have around a black man( or percieved as black man) wielding power. To me it was an extremely well researched and subtly, but powerfully, argued indictment of the idea that race isn’t an issue in modern America

Appropriately Angry-comment 1
It seems that any kind of criticism, however subtle or sweet, of Obama is perceived as angry. Election year or because Coates is black? Or maybe even anything not Louis Armstrong-happy is seen as angry?

Appropriately Angry-comment 2
Anybody remember Bill Hicks? The “are you in Marketing please kill yourselves”-joke? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
Obviously the Atlantic have recognized that there is a market for what they see as “angry minority-voices”. In the spirit of By any means necessary I find that if the recognition of this “market” is what it takes to get these voices heard rather than their implicit and explicit aritstic, political and societal value I’m… ok with that. Not happy. But ok. The cynicism, and what me and my friends sometimes call suburban-nihilism( a kind of valulessness that comes from assured relative plenty), of the comment signifies actually enrages me and makes me question if we will ever get any true middleclass white allies…The excitement of having an “angry black man” on board also implies a sort of exoticism for white made archetypes that I, when in a good mood, call unintentional bias and when I’ grumpy, racist BS.
Is that to harsh?

Basically, “impersonating” a dead body, often with a bag of Skittles in the shot.

I didn’t quite know what to make of the article, and it was reassuring to know the author himself had similarly conflicting thoughts (as was shown in the video, where he initially thought it wasn’t an angry piece but later admitted that it was). It was a very winding analysis without much of a strong thesis other than the assertion that Obama’s presidency hasn’t cured racism once and for all. Anyone would readily admit as much, so Coates hasn’t really made a point that is controversial or even intriguing.

His comparison of Obama to Booker T. Washington is apt, however. Having read “Up From Slavery” this year, I can agree with Coates that Washington sought to take a non-aggressive “higher ground” approach to promoting racial unity. The entire theme of his book was to exhort black people to PROVE to the white establishment that by the unmistakable fruits of their talents, they deserve to be on the same level. Washington knew that this would take time, which is why he placated the segregationists during the period in which he lived. Achieving positions of power by sheer talent rather than brute force or government mandate seems to have been a sensible approach.

Coates also unfortunately resorts to an all-too-common attack on the Cosby ethos, when he writes, “And yet what are we to make of an integration premised, first, on the entire black community’s emulating the Huxt­ables?” I am not black myself, so I have no idea how the black community as a whole feels about a statement like this, but to me it seems disturbing. He seems to harbor a bizarre view of black families who are financially successful and ethically above board, inferring that they are too much like some vaguely held idea of white perfection. His main thrust in this article seems to be that he wishes a black president could be more “angry” at the racial divide, but I would argue that we Americans never tend to elect leaders that come across as angry, no matter their race or gender. (At least this has been the case for the 34 years I’ve been alive.) Yet the fact that Obama has chosen to take Washington’s high road somehow bothers Coates.

Again, the article is so meandering that it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what the author really wants to express. Perhaps it’s nothing more than a general frustration that Obama’s presidency hasn’t panned out exactly as he wished. But how many presidents truly exceed expectations? Not many. It is part of the American character to level harsh and consistent criticism against all of our establishments. The reasons for such a character are many: the freedom of speech that we are rightly taught to hold dear from childhood, the inherent diversity of our population, and the general spirit of individuality that has pervaded our nation ever since its defiant beginnings. Critics will continue to flourish in this country, on both sides of the aisle. The few who can successfully deflect that criticism and rise above it demonstrate the type of levelheadedness we demand from our leaders. In this, Barack Obama has succeeded masterfully.