The message from Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a new book coming out this fall (October 1, 2024) called The Message and it looks really interesting:

Ta-Nehisi Coates had initially set out to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how whose stories – our reporting, our imaginative narratives and the creation of myths – expose and distort our realities.

In the first of the book’s three interwoven essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythical kingdom in his mind. He then takes his readers with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on the banning of his own book, but also explores the broader implications of the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deep-rooted American mythology so visible in this city – a capital of the Confederacy with statues of segregationists dominating its public squares. Finally, in the longest section of the book, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we let’s talk about the reality of life on the ground.

Coates was recently a guest on the Longform podcast and talked about one of the central themes of the book (“how the stories we tell – and the ones we don’t tell – shape our realities”):

There is a certain right-wing political sector that understands very well that cultural issues are actually very, very powerful. That books, movies, TV shows, monuments, statues, and art all really matter and have a huge effect on what we think of as real politics, i.e. voting , legislation, etc. Because all of our notions of humanity flow from these things. They’re derived from, you know, stories. They come from current events. They’re derived from, you know, art. They derive from statues. That’s how we decide, you know, who’s what.

And the reason, you know, it’s powerful is because in previous eras – for example, when during the era of redemption, it became extremely important to destroy the multiracial democracies that were created in the South. They attacked history. They attacked the stories. That’s where all these monuments come from. These monuments did not come out of nothing. It’s no mistake that it wasn’t until the early 1960s that Southern states began flying the Confederate battle flag. They understood the power of the symbol. They know. They know. And now they find themselves in an era where there is a real culture war, by which I mean: the hegemony that they once enjoyed over culture is actually actively contested, and that poses a long-term threat for the politics they represent. .

So, I mean, a lot of people say, oh, it’s a distraction. I actually think it’s quite clever. Even if that’s not the answer I would have, I don’t think it’s more of an illusory answer or a delusional answer.

This sounds fascinating – I definitely pre-ordered.