Ta-Nehisi Coates wants to send a message. He believes America supports white supremacy. He believes Israel is an Apartheid country. He wants reparations for those who descended from slaves. He believes America has a debt to pay. He believes America is systemically racist. The people he uses as sources all agree with his philosophy. Some readers who agree with his ideas will give the book a glowing review. Some, like me, will not. Nevertheless, he has a great many followers and teaches at Howard University, so he will influence a great many people, negatively, in my opinion. Although he studied journalism, he is mostly an activist and seems more interested in creating activism, in order to further promote his message.
So, even as I realize that my review will go against the grain, if I am honest, I have to acknowledge that this book has taken a very one-sided and biased approach in order to present its message. In order to make the case he believes in, he has to leave out essential facts. There is no mention of the fact that slaves were sold to the English while they were in Africa, and they were sold by Africans. It was African tribes that captured other tribe members and sold them. They were not living in the lap of luxury or Nirvana, though they were happy. They were largely illiterate and not rocket scientists on their way to discover new technology. With education, perhaps they would have, but that was not the situation in which they lived. Then, there is no mention of the fact that the United Nations voted to give Israel to the Jews and also gave territory to the Arabs for their own state. They refused to accept the arrangement, and the other Arab nations did not want to absorb the displaced Palestinians, and so they objected. They were not living in the lap of luxury there, either, though they were happily thriving, and their lives were disrupted. This situation was also not Nirvana. These are important historic facts that Coates omitted as he attempted to present his anti-Semitic position and his argument about White Supremacy, racism and the justification for reparations. Coates neglected to mention that it was the Democrats who started the KKK as he railed against Trump's racism. He never actually delineates many specific reasons for making Trump the enemy, but I suspect it is because he supports the Democrats, and they, like him, believe Conservatives are the racists, which is not based in fact. There are racists on both sides as there are anti-Semites on both sides and blacks support both sides, as well.
When he addresses these subjects, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, straddling the fence, one foot on each side, trying to pretend that he is neutral. First, he sympathizes with the Jews when he visits Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, then he trashes them when he visits Hebron because it is a divided city which is controlled in part by Israel and in part by the Palestinian Authority. He decides instantly that the city is apartheid since there are different rights for Jews and Arabs, but he does not explain that it is controlled by the PA and Israel, nor does he ever mention that the Arabs have terrorized Israeli citizens with suicide bombs and car bombs, to name just a few of their weapons. So yes, there are Israeli soldiers there, and they are armed, and there is limited movement for Arabs, but not because of choice, but because of necessity. So, no, he is most definitely not neutral, and in some parts of the book, he seems to protest too much.
In the author’s essay about Israel and the Palestinians, he makes no mention of the wars started by the Arabs or the need for the Israelis to sometimes preempt attacks to protect themselves. He makes no mention of the horrific, barbaric events of October 7th, 2023, which he surely knew about when writing the book, if it was published in October of 2024. The Arabs and many of his followers support the brutal murder of more than one thousand innocent Jews dancing at a music festival to celebrate peace, no mention that this attack that murdered them in their beds and in their safe rooms, slaughtering babies and even their pets, was during a cease fire they broke to engage in these heinous acts. They tortured innocent victims. It is easy to read and learn about this event; I am not making it up. These soldiers and safe rooms and limits on travel are necessary because of these brutal Arab enemies. So why does he not make no mention of the fact that the freedom of those in Gaza is limited as is the freedom of other Arabs is limited, because they stage terrorist attacks, maiming and murdering the innocent victims they hate. In addition, his claim that he is anti-Zionist, is a myth. An anti-Zionist is most certainly an anti-Semite, and not simply an anti-Zionist, though it seems like a distinction without a difference since you cannot have an Israel, created for Jews, by the usually antisemitic United Nations, after the horrific events of The Holocaust, if you have more Arabs there, than Jews, especially since the Arabs, historically, and Arabs even more today, have rejected the offer of their own statehood and simply seem bent on destroying Israel from the River to the Sea. They make no bones about it. Does he support the Pro-Palestinian marchers demanding the end of Israel? How will he square that circle?
Coates has outed himself as a black supremacist in his approach to the United States, as well. He rails against its history and attempts to rewrite it by cherry-picking all of his sources from anti-white “experts” like Nikole Hannah-Jones. I think this book qualifies as one that should be banned by those who banned "Huckleberry Finn" and "To Kill A Mockingbird". It is racist, albeit of the opposite kind considered today. This is black against white systemic racism, Arab vs Jew accusatory dialogue, and it might well qualify as hate speech. To show anger and emphasis, foul language is used unnecessarily. Also, Coates mispronounces words that a college professor should know. I found that distracting, and I wondered if he used the term "aksed" instead of asked on purpose.
I believe that if a white person had written this book about black people, or a Muslim had written it about white people or Jews, or a black person had attacked another black person or white person as overtly, in any other venue or at any other time, he/she would not have received accolades for promoting activist hate. We all witnessed the horrific events in Paris when Muslims attacked because they were offended by a cartoon. This book is beyond a cartoon, that encouraged so much violence. No one wants to witness any violence, so I wish I had gotten a more peaceful message from him.
The author presents false facts about how the “Palestinians” lived before the Jews came to Israel, or even later on when they were given the land to settle. They did not have electricity in the 18th century. They were not flourishing economically. He paints a picture that is Nirvana that never existed. The Arabs and the Palestinians rejected peace offers and the offer of their own state, and then they went to war against the Jews who did accept the offer. After a peace agreement and a withdrawal from Gaza, they destroyed the greenhouses left there for them to use to improve their situation, because they were left by Jews. He never mentions that.
He refers to Israel as an Apartheid country, and Hebron as an Apartheid City. Arabs cannot go to certain parts of the city, but it is unsafe for a Jew to go to the part of the city that the Arabs control, so are they guilty of being Apartheid too? The Arabs declared war immediately after the UN granted Israel statehood. The Arabs have been forcing Jews from the land forever, not allowing them to occupy the same space. The Wailing Wall was forbidden to them when the Arabs had control, but Coates was upset because parts of Hebron were forbidden to Arabs. Earth to Coates, any area controlled by the Palestinian Authority and Arabs, is forbidden to Jews because they would be in danger of imminent death if they entered.
When he travelled with an Arab sponsored group, he was upset about the fact that he had to wait to enter places… but if he had been blown up by an Arab terrorist, he would have been far more upset. He did not present an honest or complete picture of the conflict in the Middle East. They broke the ceasefires and started wars. They refused to sign onto peace agreements. Israel takes more and more land and makes more and more settlements in order to make more room for secure borders, not only to house their citizens. They need to protect themselves from the very people Coates is supporting. Coates should know that it is the Jews who have the longest history in that part of the world. It is the Jews who were driven out and perhaps, therefore, the Jews deserve reparations.
Since he rails against the flying of a Confederate Flag, he should also rail against his own book which denigrates the Founders of this country and does not acknowledge the origin of slavery from the country he seems to hear calling him home, Africa.
I won’t write more. The reader should decide about the book’s message for themselves. First, though, the reader should learn the real history, not 1619, but the real history of America and its fight for independence. The reader should learn about the White people who fought and died to free the slaves. The reader should learn about October 7th 2023, before they paint the Arabs and the Palestinians with so broad a brush of peacefulness, and they should learn about why the Arabs won’t take in Arabs when they believe they are mistreated. Also, if the reader believes that the Blacks deserve reparations for being slaves, than they need to read about Jews who were slaves for longer in the Arab territories the reader supports so much.
The history, the country and the white people have been maligned in this book and the blame is on the wrong shoulders. Nothing is free. One has to work hard to get rewards. Why did Coates spend five years in Howard University, leave without a degree, and yet qualify to be a Professor? Does that sound racist?