Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn
Dissecting Interviews: Coleman Hughes v. Ta-Nehisi Coates
Besties Angella and Leslie contrast recent interviews with authors Coleman Hughes and Ta-Nehisi Coates in which they discuss their respective books dealing with racial politics, racism and identity.
In his 2024 book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America, Hughes discusses the possibilities and implications of a ‘colorblind’ America while in The Message, Coates describes his trips to three global regions and the chasm between written narratives and often harsh realities.
Angella and Leslie consider and contrast two recent interviews with these authors: One now viral one with Ta-Nehisi interviewed by CBS journalist Tony Dokoupil, the other was Coleman Hughes’ interview on the podcast On Point with Meghna Chakrabarti.
The episode underscores the benefit of framing questions with curiosity and respect, highlighting how the art of interviewing can either bridge or divide our grasp of contentious issues like racial and national identity or the legitimacy of political boundaries.
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What I understood him to say is not that that's an aspirational goal. What I took it to mean is that that is what's happening right now, that we are now experiencing less racism than we did before. I think that the racism is exactly the same, it just looks different. I see it's James Crow now. Hey Ange, hey Les, how you doing, doing pretty good pretty good, pretty good, Good good.
Speaker 2:Hey guys, Welcome to another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn. I'm Angela and that is my best friend of almost 50 years, Lesley. We are two intellectually curious 60-something-year-old Black women and we are here to invite you to join us in thinking deeply and acting boldly. To be talking about is something that I was enlightened by and I brought to Leslie's attention, and so I was listening. A few months ago, maybe earlier in September, there was a um a on on point which is um a public um npr radio station show show. Yeah, I think it's a podcast called on point, but it's also broadcast.
Speaker 1:I listen to it on the radio. It's not just a, a podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay, groovy. So it's WBUR and it was in September. Sorry, I don't have the date. We'll put it in the episode notes. Okay, and Megan Chakrabarty was interviewing Coleman Hughes, who's an author, and he had just written a new book. What's the name of his new book? Did I write it down? I don't think I wrote it down, just look it up too.
Speaker 2:The name of the episode was Can Colorblindness Lead to Equality in America? So I listened to it and I noticed the way that and I noticed the way that Meghna was interviewing him and I noticed just how her questions hit. And then I kind of locked that in and I was like, wow, that's interesting. I like how that interview went. I did not agree with a lot of the um, um, coleman Hughes's perspectives, but I love that the questions were answered.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that was a point in time. Great interview, talk Correct.
Speaker 2:Correct Noted Right Interesting. Oh, I'm going to get that book because I'd like to kind of understand him a little bit better.
Speaker 1:And I do have the name of the book. Okay, Thank you. It's called the End of Race Politics Arguments for a Colorblind America.
Speaker 2:Okay so this is a young black man he's in his late 20s who has this perspective. Okay so, as my mother would say, stick a pin there, then fast forward to early October.
Speaker 1:I think it's the second or third Right.
Speaker 2:Tenehase Coates comes out with his new book called the Message. It depicts his time in South Carolina, in Dakar, Senegal, and in the West Bank, Gaza, and he wrote this book and then he was interviewed by someone on CBS and as soon as I heard that interview, how that interview went, I was like, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I remember this other interview.
Speaker 2:I remember this other interview and I was like Les.
Speaker 1:You better listen to this.
Speaker 2:And of course you were listening to all of the brouhaha over the interview.
Speaker 1:Over the current Ta-Nehisi Coates interview.
Speaker 2:And so I tied it back to this other one. I'm like it would be so great for us to compare and contrast the interview, the style, what was. So we are going to be talking about the content of each person's point of view, but we also wanted to talk about the interviewing style. You know, and we'll kind of so that's that's the setup.
Speaker 1:You want to add anything more to it? Actually, the style of the interview is a bit more of the point that we're discussing than the content itself, because you know, anybody can find out the content. But the fact that we can compare the two of them more specifically, what was similar about it, what was different about it and why one appealed over the other or whatever- Right the other part, and that this is where the content comes in.
Speaker 2:We wanted to also challenge our own thinking because, quite frankly, in one case, ta-nehisi Coates, leslie and I both are more aligned with the way that he sees the world than Coleman Hughes right, and so we wanted to kind of be honest about to to what extent we are either.
Speaker 2:um less critical biased of the interviewer, because of these, these differences, and so we really wanted to go kind of go deep in this, because we are deep thinkers. It's just who we are, and hopefully you're here because you are too, um. So, with all that being said, I was just thinking.
Speaker 1:We're deep thinkers and coffee drinkers got my coffee too.
Speaker 2:Uh, what is it? A cup of ambition.
Speaker 1:Nine to five anyway, and this is my National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 2:Cool, excellent. I probably have one of those, because it's rare that you have something like that and you don't buy it and send me one, all right. So, les, let's talk about the most current one. Let's talk about the interview CBS News with Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Speaker 1:The author, who was invited to speak about the entirety of his book, was attacked by one of three interviewers, viewers, tony Dockapill, I think, is his name, who happens to be a converted Jew. And well, I should say he converted to Judaism I think that would be a bit more appropriate to say. And he was critical of Ta-Nehisi's one-sided writing about what he witnessed on the West Bank. Okay, so he essentially he called him essentially a terrorist. He says, taken out of context, if your name were removed from it, your award-winning names, take away all your awards and credentials. This book, excuse me, this book could be in the backpack of a terrorist.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, that was actually how the interview began. Yes, and it was peppered with you're a smart guy and you know we're friends and all of that.
Speaker 1:It was peppered with that, and then and then he asked in the interview so do you think that Israel should not exist?
Speaker 2:Have the right. Have the right to exist. You think Israel does not have the right to exist. Have the right. Have the right to exist. You think Israel does not have the right to exist?
Speaker 1:Yes, and it went a little bit on and on from there. What was also interesting about the interview was that Ta-Nehisi did not seem to be taken aback from it. Everyone in the audience and around was clutching on pearls. He's a very seemingly low-key guy and he was just answering, and later he said that he actually anticipated this type of questioning and I almost thought it was like he was blindsided, in my opinion or I would have been blindsided, because it didn't appear that Tony Dockerville was asking him about his book per se, but more about Ta-Nehisi's personal feelings, his political yeah.
Speaker 1:And political leanings rather than discussing the content of this book. Discussing the content of this book, remember, the author visited three places and wrote about his experiences in each of these places as a message to his students. He's a professor at Harvard University and none of the other places came up. That's one. But in addition to that, none of the other interviewers had an opportunity to even get one question in of the author, and they mentioned specifically that Gayle King had spoken to him prior to airing that day and had a whole page full of notes and questions that she wanted to speak to him about on air and didn't get the opportunity to do that.
Speaker 2:So, since this is a compare and contrast, let me give you, like, some things that I noted that were different, that Meghna Chattopadhyay language that she used and I think her questions were just as what's the word I'm going to say biting, because they were just as challenging. Okay, I think Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They were pretty deep, exactly. But she grounded her questions and things like tell me more about right. She said is it not possible that things like that, what had you meant by xyz? So for me, that is said.
Speaker 1:Let me push back a little bit, exactly now that is kind of respectful.
Speaker 2:That is curious. That is also good, good interviewing, good journalism, where you're not kind of bringing she, I'm sure, well, I'm not sure Even if she had a point of view. By approaching Coleman Hughes in this way, I think she showed him a great deal of respect and it was a dialogue, not an attack.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:I think that what Tenasi Coates experienced was an attack. I mean, you know, in any of the, because any of the questions were around. So he talked about, as you said, does Israel have the right to exist, this being something that almost like um, um. I thought about um, um, um, mao and the red book, that that all, all of his followers had this red red book of rules that they follow or any kind of Marxist manifesto. That that is kind of the way that he was comparing um to Nazi Coates' book, um in in in that, in that style, which which clearly shows the the um, the bias and the kind of intentionality, I think, of the interviewer in in that case, so um of the interviewer in that case. So I'll say too that in both cases, I think you, les, would agree.
Speaker 2:We were so informed because the questions were asked right. We got new language, for example, for talking about a way that you can look at that. You can look at that, you can look at an issue that we might not otherwise have considered, right, I mean, you know me, I'm, I'm, I'm the first one to want to hear two sides of something you know, I'm very yeah.
Speaker 2:Much to my chagrin, sometimes much, it's like because Les no but I don't Let me. Did you think about that? Doesn't make sense to me. Leslie is not a default. No, no, no, no, I like to hear both sides, I'm like.
Speaker 1:Well, consider this. People call me a contrarian for that reason, and it's not.
Speaker 2:I just, there are other things to consider.
Speaker 1:You can't lock in on one thing. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 2:Let me give an example of what I mean by that, just to be clear. So one of the things that was asked of Ta-Nehisi Coates was well, doesn't Israel have the right to exist? And his response to that is no country has a right per se.
Speaker 1:Every country has an inherent right.
Speaker 2:Every country has an inherent right.
Speaker 1:Every country was created.
Speaker 2:The boundaries of every country was created by force, much like the United States, exactly, exactly, and so this way of kind of this is a question that's asked every time. Doesn't Israel have a right to exist? The right to exist, and it's like, of course they do. Of course they do, and the interviewer actually said you know, shouldn't we all kind of have a safe place to be? This is, this is a safe place for Jewish people. The listener, a way to respond to this very kind of common question that we have around Israel's right to exist, almost something that can never be under scrutiny.
Speaker 1:He gave us language to see it in a different way, in a different way and discuss it. I'll tell you why you and I differed about this. The criticism of this interview was that I thought the interviewer asked poignant, interesting questions, and they elicited really thoughtful, intelligent answers from Ta-Nehisi Coates. The problem I have, though, is that at one point I wanted to say are they still talking about this book? You know, it's like am I right now on Fox News or am I on CNN, or am I on the BBC? You know World Channel? Are we now discussing the politics of the Middle East? You know what am I looking at right now? So I think that Ta-Nehisi Coates could well stand up to the scrutiny of having a separate conversation about some of the politics in the Middle East, as he saw it on his recent trip, and some of the thoughts that he's put together as a result of it. Right, but if, in fact, he was there to discuss the writing of his book, he was not able to achieve that purpose, Right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:The book as a whole versus this particular chapter of the book. Yeah, yeah, right, yeah yeah in that country, yet, and still we would not get to the essence of the book and the meat of the book. I have no idea from that interview why he linked those three places of all the places, or the connection that they held, or you know, I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and you listened to the full interview and we still don't know.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and you listened to the full interview and we still don't know.
Speaker 2:No, I don't know. So what did you think about the on-point interview in terms of the content? Some people believe that that it's find it really hard to separate their their opinion about a topic from whether the persons involved were treated fairly or not.
Speaker 1:Right, If I disagree with you, I don't give a shit how you're treated.
Speaker 2:Then I care, and so we're not wired that way.
Speaker 1:No, I was just going to say that's not me at all, maybe that's the humanist part of me. But, no, no, I think everybody has a voice and I absolutely don't need to agree with their voice, in this case, with this young man. First of all, I don't know if you noticed, but as I was listening to the program, I had to Google him.
Speaker 2:I'm like how old is this young man?
Speaker 1:You know, it's like no wonder he's thinking, in my opinion, in such a limited way. He hasn't lived long enough.
Speaker 1:He's 28 years old and he's had a certain amount of experience, but I'm saying to say that we're no longer in, or racism in this country is going down, and we should strive and we are moving more toward a race neutral country. I'm like, what country is he talking about? First of all, we have a whole election that is going to be decided in about three and a half weeks. That is predicated, in my opinion, on race. The only reason and I said this to a colleague not too long ago you wonder why an educated, experienced, a former attorney general, a prosecutor, a governor, a vice president, why is this person and a senator? Why is this person? Neck and neck and tied with a person with multiple bankruptcies, a history of being the president, 34 felony counts convicted against him and more pending A divisive person, sexual, abusive?
Speaker 1:Well, he's. Yeah, not just that, he has led an insurrection after the election, he's a liar. He is not a truth teller, election denier. He tells you that he is going to be a dictator on day one and he's going to. I can go on and on and on about the. I can compare and contrast the two people and again, when I say, why are these two in a dead heat. I think it's racism and sexism, but I think, unlike Colin Hughes, I believe that racism covers everything in our country, sadly you know, but everything right, so I have a different opinion If let me just get back on Kamala's.
Speaker 1:If Kamala had 34 felony convictions and more indictments pending, If she had one, if she had half. And more indictments pending. How would the race look? I'm not going to offer a prediction. Just think about it, Just dropping that out there. What would that look like? What would the race look like? Anyway, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what I thought about his perspective is this is really provocative. I want to know more.
Speaker 1:I want to you said you're going to get his book.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am, and I'm looking forward to reading it and understanding, because I think much like I know I know you do. That's why it's I love kind of the way that we come at things very differently sometimes. I think that some of the points that he made, although they might have seemed Pollyanna-ish, it's also I wouldn't use that word, that would be your word because I didn't see it that way.
Speaker 2:I listened to him in a very similar way that I listened to Ta-Nehisi Coates, similar way that I listened to Tenasi Coates. I listened to him like man. This person is a very deep thinker. His perspective is different from mine, so I didn't see him as young and naive and haven't lived long enough to experience. I saw him. I listened to the interview as wow, this is someone who has done a lot of research. The people who have opinions that differ from his, who he is in staunch disagreement with, he's familiar with their work.
Speaker 2:He was very familiar with their works, what is kind of what he can understand about their positions and what he strongly disagrees with. So I loved hearing these things, even though where I sit now in the world, in my experiences, I don't agree with him. But I'm very, very interested in learning more about how these opinions were formed. You know he talked about, for example, as a young person, being in a, an environment where wearing an Afro and was not anything strange, even though he went to school with in a diverse school. It was not strange to see an Afro and then going to a school where people wearing Afros was very uncommon and people touching his Afro and him being very upset by it. He did not. Does not see that as racism and that's just it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so his interpretation of his experiences were not the interpret, were not the way I would interpret those things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the same so the same, the same experience for him it was not, and for others it would be.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure, the same experience. For him it was not, and for others it would be Sure, sure. Now I agree that he seems to be well educated, you know, seems to have a good pedigree. I just think that he's missing out or wearing blinders, and I call it naive. We could, some could say privileged, because he has had somewhat of a privileged, um, upbringing, it seems, where I'll give you, let me just say this, let me just say this this is really deep. I just thought about that. You know how I live in the world. I live in the world. I guess you could call it Pollyanna-ish, but I call it unicorns and rainbows, right, this is the way that I live in the world.
Speaker 1:So I see people, I give folks benefit of the doubt and I give circumstances and situations that benefit of the doubt as well, which gets me which is what gets me in trouble sometimes Like can't you see Whatever? So obviously, as a Black woman in America, obviously as a Black physician in America, as a Black woman physician in America, you know I've had my share of bias, racism. I see it from my peers, my colleagues, obviously, and my patients. I've experienced it. But do I really see it?
Speaker 1:You know that I have this opinion that I have not experienced, experienced much of the racism that many people report many people in my position report. Does that mean I've not experienced it or does that mean my interpretation of the experience differs? So in Hughes's case, I posit that because we live in the same world, because he's a black man in America, he has experienced the same amount of racism that you, me, john Lewis, martin Luther King and, unfortunately, emmett Till has experienced, not in the same ways, obviously, but his interpretation of them could have been different. His opportunities have been different and, like me, I choose to either see things in a different way. That doesn't mean that I haven't experienced it and been a victim of it.
Speaker 2:So, les, let me ask you this question right? So you often say that race is a construct, right, you state that as fact. You state that as race is a construct, right, you state that as fact. You state that as still, as all the ways that you, as all the ways that you just kind of defined yourself, like you are those things black woman, black woman, doctor, all of those things. Yet you believe, you know that race is a construct, right, you adopt that way of thinking much more readily than I do, right, because I'm like okay, therefore, what.
Speaker 2:But okay. So if race is a construct? And then here's this person in Coleman Hughes who's saying well, why are we using this construct to um, forevermore define ourselves? Why aren't we looking for ways to break away from this construct that we know was put upon us and we know does more harm than good, you know? So why are we still? Why are we being bound by this construct?
Speaker 1:If I took that away from his talk, as that was his intention, he and I are in agreement. What I understood him to say is not that that's an aspirational goal. What I took it to mean is that that is what's happening right now, that we are now experiencing less racism than we did before. I think that the racism is exactly the same, it just looks different. It's James Crow. Now you know it's not right. So what I'm saying is that I would love to live in a world where we all get rid of that construct of race and see people for who they are, whatever. But before that can happen, you got to tell everybody everybody got to do that Not just me, not just yous.
Speaker 1:Right, you know so. So what I'm saying is it's like, yeah, that's a wonderful goal to have and it's lofty and lord. If my great great grandchildren can experience that, I'd be a happy person looking down or looking up at them.
Speaker 1:But let's go but, but, but in all honesty, that's not the reality today, and I don't think that he wrote a book about futurism the book. What I understood him to be saying is that this is what he sees is happening right now. He mentioned certain experiences and explained that they were not due to racism. They were due to other things happening, curiosity. Curiosity or this or that, and that I didn't agree with.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So neither of us have read his book and I'm not sure if you're going to, but I'm definitely going to and so I do want to be kind of careful about we are speaking based on what we heard in this interview, and so I don't think anything that has been said is out of line.
Speaker 1:I just kind of wanted to say that more broadly Express our ignorance, that we have not read the book.
Speaker 2:We're just commenting on an interview or two interviews actually, and doing the comparing and contrasting, I do think that, in my way of seeing the world and the future that I would, I would want it where, where, where do we start? At what point do we start having this conversation about removing race, removing this, this construct from cause? He he in the interview was talking about his pushback on some of the people who are very well known in the anti-racism and affirmative action sphere. When you build policy based on race, those things are kind of have have inherent. If someone is being benefited, then someone is is suffering from a deficit.
Speaker 2:And if we make this policy? Then that has longer term implications then. So to me very interesting.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying I agree or anything like that, but it's like hmm, it's almost like in order for these things, and that's why, you know, racism and bias is such a difficult thing. I mean, there are so many people who wish that it would go away. And I tell you, I've had a colleague that says, you know, I don't see you as a black person. You know, I wish that could ever be true, you know, but in order for these things to happen, let's just say it would have to be like one, two, three go, ok, now everybody, you know, because while there are still people remaining, then there's still suffering going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get that. Before we kind of bring this in for a close, I wanted to read a quote from Tanehase Coates' book the Message. Ta-nehisi Coates' book the Message, and it says I want to tell you that your oppression will not save you, that being a victim will not enlighten you, and that it can just as easily deceive you. Now I don't know whether this quote was in the portion of the book that was talking about his experiences in Israel and in Gaza. I assume that it was, because they didn't talk in any of the interviews that I listened to and I did not listen to all of them, but in the one that we're focusing on here there was no conversation about any other part of his book. So I'm going to just believe that this was in relation to the fact that many people believe, including Israelis themselves, that when they say not in our name, that they see what the state of Israel which is very different than the Israeli people, but the state of Israel, a right wing government that what they're doing is a form of oppression that they can do now in a place of power, that when the history of the Jewish people, they were the oppressed, and so the point here is that kind of we, including Black people, and I kind of want to say this, in the same way that I don't like this Black excellence type of trope. My thing is, we're people, we do amazing things, we do disgusting things, we do all the things. There's no exceptionalism in our oppression. In our oppression we don't. And so his caution, I think, is when you kind of build your whole life around, oh I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, I'm oppressed, it's not going to save you because it can become the thing that you cannot use that history of oppression to then become the oppressor, right, Because here's the thing. It's kind of like oh well, you can't you, you you have to see me through my, through my oppression, and so you can't judge me, you can't judge what I do because I'm the oppressed.
Speaker 2:And there's a lyric in one of Bob Marley's songs and I believe it's Old Testament, because a lot of his lyrics come from the Old Testament of the Bible. It says every man thinks that his burden is the heaviest. And so this idea every man's thinking that his burden is the heaviest and this idea that you know because we see it in our community too, this idea that, yeah, but you know the LGBTQIA community. They can change up whenever they want. This is just, but being black, that we can't take off our skin and it's kind of like this. Yeah, but we get the right to be, to be bullied sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you know what I mean, and it's like a bully. Then look at us and then well, you're othering other people, didn't?
Speaker 2:don't you remember what that feels like? Why would you be okay with having other people feel less than just because you think that the burden of being Black is the worst thing possible? So I wanted to kind of call that out, because that's always this interesting concept for me, and that is why I'm so interested in listening to more of Coleman Hughes's perspective, because I want to challenge myself around this idea of of the burden of being black and how that you know what are some ways that that burden is not something that I have to carry at some point.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in my future, how about if we move out of this country?
Speaker 2:That too, exodus Summit is coming up.
Speaker 1:Another century, you know, again I say it's aspirational. It would be wonderful, you know, and be Miss Unicorn Rainbow Lady, it's like you know. But this is, that's Afrofuturism for real, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2:You know, that's hilarious, that's hilarious, yeah, yeah. All right, lads, listen. This was long, how long, how long been going on?
Speaker 1:It's been a while. Yeah, okay, I don't want to know. I don't want to know. All right, let's bring it in for a landing. Well, you are something else.
Speaker 2:That's all I can say you are something else, you'd have it, no other way, this has been another episode of Black Boomer Besties from Brooklyn, brooklyn.
