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Ta-Nehisi Coates (again, I know)

This Fall has been the season for lectures.  So far I’ve heard Elizabeth Gilbert, Dr. Willie James Jennings and, as of last Thursday, Ta-Nehisi Coates.  All 3 speaking engagements have enlivened my mind in a way akin to college and they have made me eager to keep my eye on the… what?  Seattle Cool Speaker/Author/Theologian circuit?   Whatever it is, I’m on the watch for it!

The evening with Coates was set up as an interview/conversation between Coates & a local icon/advocate in the arts here in Seattle, whose name I’m blanking on at the moment.  It was a powerful conversation and I’m still ruminating on many aspects of it.

I especially enjoyed how Coates sugarcoated NOTHING.  I’m used to having conversations about race within the context of the Christian Church and, as such, there is typically a lot of tip-toeing around each other and taking great care not to offend or speak out of turn, which has its place, but I liked that Coates has no such qualms or concerns.   Two things in particular are still on my mind, a week later, so here they are…

When discussing race in America, Coates pointed out that Black folks, generally speaking, have two things.  There is race, which we know to be a social construct that is foisted upon them as a means of keeping them not-White.  And then there is culture, which can include various things, depending on the community.  So you can take away race yet still have culture.  White folks, on the other hand, don’t have that in the U.S.   So when the conversation came around to the subject of mass incarceration, he said:

“So, we’ve got our stuff, right?  Our dancing, our music, our whatever.  We don’t need over-incarceration to have those things.  But you DO need over-incarceration…to be White.” 

And when asked what White folks should do, he simply said:

“I don’t know.  That’s your burden” (insert awkward seat shuffling by the progressive White Seattle-ites).

At that point, Jason turned to me with his eyes all big and whispered, “Daaang!  Dude is BRINGING it!”   Like I said: no sugarcoating.  It was like throwing wide the window that usually only eeks open degree by painful degree.   I was fretting as we walked into McCaw Hall last Thursday, wondering if this admired writer would be knocked back a couple notches once I actually saw and heard him in person, but it turns I needn’t have worried.   Dude was definitely bringing it.