>When he honestly asks: “How do you defy a power that insists on claiming you?”, the answer should be clear: they claim you because you are silent on what is a threat to their order (especially Wall Street and war). You defy them when you threaten that order.
>Coates tries to justify his “defiance” by an appeal to “black atheism, to a disbelief in dreams and moral appeal”. He not only has “no expectations of white people at all”, but for him, if freedom means anything at all it is “this defiance”.
>Note that his perception of white people is tribal and his conception of freedom is neoliberal. Racial groups are homogeneous and freedom is individualistic in his world. Classes don’t exist and empires are nonexistent.
>There is no doubt that the marketing of Coates – like the marketing of anyone – warrants suspicion. Does the profiteering of fatalism about white supremacy and pessimism of black freedom fit well in an age of Trump – an age of neo-fascism, US style?
>Coates praises Obama as a “deeply moral human being” while remaining silent on the 563 drone strikes, the assassination of US citizens with no trial, the 26,171 bombs dropped on five Muslim-majority countries in 2016 and the 550 Palestinian children killed with US supported planes in 51 days, etc. He calls Obama “one of the greatest presidents in American history,” who for “eight years ... walked on ice and never fell.”
what's your take on the clash between these two prominent public intellectuals?
I'm redpilled. I want both of them shipped back to fucking Africa. Take this to plebbit, we're viciously against these """"people's""" """""""""""""""ideas""""""""""""""" getting any kind of coverage in public consciousness. It's white genocide
Levi Sanchez
Shut up and go back to Sup Forums.
I'm in support of the whole system from top to bottom, so I think they're both off target. I can't point to any one book to explain how I've come to this point of view. Just think about how war-like our species has been up until 1945, and maybe you'll appreciate how amazing it is that a world with nuclear weapons hasn't blown itself up yet.
Adrian Diaz
>Americas income inequality mirrors 19th century Europe >Wealth inequality mirrors 1950s Russia >No wage hike in 30 years >Debts have doubled >Finance industry eating the productive economy >90%+ of the jobs created since 2005 are low hours/low wage >Child poverty/poverty in general increasing >Life expectancy decreasing
>I support the whole system from top to bottom
How do you justify this situation?
Bentley King
Coates is a hack. He writes well enough, but his half-hearted afro-pessimism is ridiculously poorly thought out, and he doesn't understand the other thinkers and authors that he references and attempts to refute in his own writing.
West's attacks from the Black Left and Chatterton-Williams' attacks from the Black Right are both correct. Coates is essentially a high-brow Ann Coulter for liberal pseuds.
Ryder Parker
who are some good afro-pessimists?
Jacob Lewis
I'm white and rich. Fuck leftism
Chase Richardson
>Americas income inequality mirrors 19th century Europe Economics isn't a zero sum game. Are you proposing we destroy all inheritance laws & capture all rich citizens before they flee the country? >Wealth inequality mirrors 1950s Russia you realize wheresoever there were ultra-rich in the soviet union it was through total corruption right? There used to circulate a rumour that Stalin had like 5 houses and a harem, but it turns out he had a small home and shared several residences with practically all of the upper echelons of government for the purpose of conferences and meetings >No wage hike in 30 years That's thanks to your neoliberal politicians flooding the labor market with foreign workers, I support nationalist policies >Debts have doubled that's because millennials are incapable of anything other than hedonistic short term thinking >finance industry eating the productive economy *washington democrats who've turned the finance industry into a kickback scheme for their friends are eating the productive economy >90%+ of the jobs created since 2005 are low hours/low wage 90% of all jobs are low hours/low wage young men of working age are barely 20% of the population, and the only ones who need to bring home the bread >child poverty/poverty in general increasing give me some US statistics on this and I'll agree >life expectancy decreasing this is because millennials are more obese, more prone to heart disease, and overeat more than their parents
James Nelson
That bigger is controlled, literally Al Sharpton for gen x libs
Angel Reed
>Americas income inequality mirrors 19th century Europe >Wealth inequality mirrors 1950s Russia
People who cite these statistics are abusing them to make it seem like the underclass is being robbed. Maybe there's a tiny little bit of that happening, but it's a function of more wealth being created at the top, and poor people breeding like rabbits; poor parents make poor children.
Perhaps you have some "poor people are entitled to wealth" argument to make, which I don't agree with. The State of the world's hyperpower, with it's world-policing military, has higher priorities than improving the quality of life of its citizens, above and beyond basic subsistence.
>Finance industry eating the productive economy
I don't know what you could be referencing here.
>the rest
Yes, I agree, wage depression is a terrible thing. But who's causing it, the State, or an ever-growing, ever-improving labour pool of 7.5 billion people? A labour pool that's needed less and less as technology advances?
Bentley Taylor
>poor people breeding like rabbits
You know the US just dropped below replacement level right?
Samuel Robinson
Blacks breed like animals. Thankfully, they are getting incarcerated or killed
Ethan Ward
remember to report all non-literature threads
Jeremiah Ramirez
not in africa, its a fucking nightmare. looking at african demo trends is enough to convert someone to nihilism
both of these ppl are authors
Jaxon Lee
Maybe "like rabbits" wasn't the best choice of words, but they sure as hell reproduce at a higher rate than middle-class/rich. Combine that with the fact that there's simply MORE of them, (what's gonna grow faster, a huge fertile group or a tiny less fertile group?) and you have inequality statistics skyrocketing purely from people being born. The only way this could be perceived as unfair is if you believe citizens are entitled to free money.
Oliver Barnes
>ridiculously poorly thought out
Landon Anderson
so 2 nigs nigging at other nigs for not nigging enough makes them high bro?
yeah, okay, nigger
I could tape sounds from a monkey cage after tossing in meat and you'd think it good penmanship
Noah Rogers
>if I name an author in the op that means I'm allowed discuss muh shitty burger politics for 300+ replies lmaool Not literature. Fuck off.
Julian Harris
Unless you actually have a point to make, you should consider going back to Sup Forums.
Joshua Lee
I do have a point to make. they both come at the left for not enabling criminals enough (one issue platform) and you think they're sophisticated?
fuck off you nigger
Easton Bailey
Everyone should read Harold Cruse.
Jackson Clark
I called Coates a "high-brow Ann Coulter for liberal pseuds." If you think that's the equivalent of calling him sophisticated, then you really need to work on your reading comprehension.
Josiah Cruz
you called the other one "correct" and thats bad enough
coates is not remotely in high taste. coates gets published in 8th grade reading level publications
Juan Lewis
>Cornel west shouldn’t have a job or a platform to speak, a hack in every way. >Coates con artist, jigaboo. should be thrown into the ocean with a back of bricks chained to his waist. wants to bilk billions from middle and working class people. hates Whytes, hates Asians and Jews. Complete racist slime ball.
Basing your understanding of power relations off of fake ideas and fake notions leads you to becoming an authoritarian universally. They’re both useless insects >we collectivist scum >i support the end of humanity and subjective consciousness pathetic
Luke Murphy
Are these people just competing who is more anti-establishment, while simultaneously being popular intellectuals given a stage by the establishment? Really makes you think..
Chase James
This whole piece feels very personal somehow… Black-intelluctuals’ drama is beyond me, I must admit. Back to Gadda.
I said that the other *two* (each coming from otherwise opposed positions) are correct in calling out Coates as wrong-headed.
Again, either work on your reading comprehension so that you can avoid looking like an idiot when on /lit/, or alternately just fuck off back to Sup Forums where you can get right in the middle of one of the neanderthal circle jerks that have migrated over from reddit.
Juan Sanders
you literally didn't say that in the post I responded to
Jacob Ramirez
>West's attacks from the Black Left and Chatterton-Williams' attacks from the Black Right are both correct. Coates is essentially a high-brow Ann Coulter for liberal pseuds.
Ayden Young
that sentence is not grammatically correct.
do you understand this?
"'s ____noun____ " is not the same as ___noun of _______" in this situation and fundamentally confuses the subject of the predicate.
telling other people to read better? you cant even compose an 8th grade sentence on a lit board kid