SIO107: Alix Jules on the Coates-West Controversy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:04 Clip: You're listening to Serious Inquiries Only. [0:00:29] Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 107. I'm your host, Thomas Smith. I am so excited today to bring you Alix Jules back for I think the third time probably. It's always fun when he's on. It is always very educational. The conversation, I set up what we were going to talk about and kind of what I want to do. So no need for more preamble. Let's get right to it.

0:00:59 Thomas: I am joined once again by Alix Jules. Alex, thank you so much for coming back on the show.

0:01:03 Alix: Oh, thank you very much for having me.

0:01:05 Thomas: I'm really excited. I will say a couple of things. So I was kind of geared up to talk about this topic a little on my own, but then I reached out to you. You said you were very familiar with a lot of the authors in question, and so I'm so glad you're here to join me to probably have way more insight. But I only mention that because I have a few opinions I want to make sure to get out there. So this might not be your typical kind of Q&A interview. Like you might unfortunately bear with me, but I may have to go on just one or two rants turns out.

0:01:36 Alix: Okay.

0:01:36 Thomas: Just so, what happened was, I, I talked about this a little on my show. Don't know if you caught it, but the, uh, Tanahisi, and I always say Tanahishi because it's spelled that way, but I, I recently heard him say his own name and he, he pronounces it Tanahasi. So I'm wrong, I guess, if I If I accidentally say that wrong. Sorry, Ta-Nehisi Coates, uh, he, uh, you know, the Cornel West column that was written about him and the criticism, I commented a little bit on it, and then, then I got all this weird pushback online for, for talking about it the way I did. And I noticed a little pattern, and I'm guessing you're going to have a lot to say about some of the larger dynamics here.

But what I found interesting was, so many people were saying that a, like, Cornel West criticism was valid. And the reason why it was valid was not because they had any textual arguments or anything like that, but because they've heard other people criticize Ta-Nehisi Coates before. So, like, that made it okay. I literally got tweets that were like, "What?

This is, I've seen this, other people say things." And then Christina Hoff Summers tweeted out a, retweeted a tweet thread by someone named Chloe Valdory, who I wasn't familiar with.

0:01:51 Alix: Yeah. Yeah, I

0:02:45 Thomas: I've come to learn she is a black Christian Zionist, which is interesting. That's like in her bio. That's kind of a weird. But anyway, a thread that was criticizing Ta-Nehisi Coates. But what's interesting about this is people were referencing this and using it to kind of bolster Cornel West criticism, but you read them and they're completely unrelated. So in my mind, it feels like people, and then I'll take it to you after this. It feels to me like people want a reason to not like Ta-Nehisi Coates, and now they're just grasping at anyone who has criticized him to justify it. Could

0:03:22 Alix: Think so, I think so. And I think that, that there's more to it, obviously. Um, when you take a look at, um, Mr. Coates' background, or how he's derived, or what he's derived as some of the greater ills that affect the African American community, it's pretty, it's pretty pessimistic. I mean, what if you've read several you of his books, some of his essays on the Atlantic, you actually see a recurring theme, and that recurring theme is white supremacy. And so when we wind up looking at why we are, we African Americans, deal with issues that we deal with, a lot of it is white supremacy, and it's based on white supremacy, and a lot of the intersectional academics and race theory academics look at that in the social circles and like, "Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that."

0:04:15 Alix: And when you look at someone like Dr. West, who doesn't necessarily discount white supremacy or the role in white supremacy, he comes from a slightly older tradition that also includes or expands the discussion to include things like economic theory. So when you take a look at the the criticism that Dr. West had, it was, it's not just white supremacy. It can't be just white supremacy. When we take a look at the impact that Wall Street has had in poverty and creating inequity and inequality, et cetera, how can you discount that and say that white supremacy is the number one issue? Now, of course, the big deal that happened between the two of them that played out on Twitter was this is a discussion of almost degree, right? Because you can't, I don't think either one of them would say that white supremacy isn't a problem.

0:05:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:15 Alix: It's, is it white supremacy by itself or is it White supremacy in conjunction with all these other things? And it was more of a discussion degree. And then when you have people like Richard Spencer jump in, et cetera, then it becomes a, Hey, hold on a second. Now we're having in a somewhat intellectual conversation, which we have been missing. I will definitely say that this kind of conversation and discourse we haven't had in years. In fact, Dr. West would say that one of the things that has been lacking in the African-American community is this level of discourse. That's kind of somewhat true. Black elite leadership, we haven'T seen a lot of conversation. And we kind of acquiesced a lot of that because, hey, you have someone like President Obama, and he's talking for everyone, including Black America.

0:05:15 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:05 Alix: But then you have someone like Dr. West who will say, no, he does not speak for the African American community. In fact, he is one of the tools of white supremacy. If anything, anything else, and then you Have someone like Coates will say no, this is an example of, of us actually coming into power and and some of the advancements and progress, and yet the duality of the discussion and discourse, again, it's more a disagreement of degree.

0:06:36 Thomas: Well, that's okay. So this is what bothered me so much about Cornel West. I agree with everything you're saying. I thought that there's another wrinkle to it, which is Ta-Nehisi Coates is not writing from a public policy perspective, I don't think. Unless I really am getting something wrong, and please correct me if I am, I do not read his stuff really that way. I do not see in his writing a lot of, well, studies show if we do this, this will happen if we We do like I don't see him writing in a way that's to try to affect public policy. I see him as writing very beautifully and compellingly about the experience, his experience specifically, and, you know, carry that out to to whoever he might be representative of about his firsthand experience and about what it felt like to have Obama win the election and all this other stuff.

0:07:30 Thomas: I see him as a bit more in the direction of lending other people, people like me who would never in a million years know what it's like to grow up how he grew up. He gives us this powerful experience to be able to read it and say, wow, I had no idea. You know, like that's incredible how you're thinking about that. Whereas I might see Cornel West more on the policy end of things. And that's why I just thought it was so, in my opinion, unfair of West to come after him the way like to the extent that he did, because he was really criticizing like you're not writing about drone strikes and economics and to which I think Coates was saying, look, man, I don't that's not what I write about. Out. Like I'm not, it's not that I don't think those are problems. It's that it's not really my area. It was, do you think I'm wrong in that?

0:08:21 Alix: No, no, no. I think you're absolutely right. I think what has happened with Coates is he's been elevated to a stature that I'm not sure that he was ever expected, but authors often are, and authors who can, I mean, take a look at the people like James Baldwin and Zora Neale Hurst. I mean, when they're able to encapsulate those feelings and really push it out there and become prolific, then yeah, you're going to get a platform. You're going get a stage. And now some people will argue that Cornel West's motivation is because he does see Coates being elevated almost to the point of someone like a West. If you believe that there is such a hierarchical scale and that's really the cause of it. But I don't think that's true. I think this is genuinely a conversation. This is a conversation that, you know, Mr.

0:08:32 Thomas: Hmm. Interesting.

0:09:19 Alix: Coates, I know he would rather have this in private. And if it was on a debate stage or a conversational piece that was moderated in a black university, that would be great. But this is something that is being played out in front of millions of people, the world to see. And of course, things are going to get cherry picked and used against them. Now, again, I'll say that there are some valid criticisms that can be launched either way, but a lot of times it is apples and orange comparisons.

0:09:46 Thomas: Right. Right. Well, and couldn't it have been more of a complimentary thing? And by that, I don'T mean like compliment. I mean like complement, like it, it could be, you know, if you have a policy solution to a problem, it doesn't mean that that contradicts someone who isn't writing about that. It just might mean mean, you know, okay, he's not writing about policy. He's writing about other things, but hey, if we want to fix this, here's what we need to do. It didn't need to be a takedown because I really, I don't I know how you read it, but it seemed pretty needlessly hostile in some ways to me.

0:09:50 Alix: Absolutely.

0:10:24 Alix: It was. It was definitely. Yeah.

0:10:24 Thomas: Yeah. And here's one more question to put into that, which I am so glad to have you here to talk talk about, how much do you think religion plays into this? Because I'm seeing a pretty core divide among sort of like more Christian black, authors version and then Coates, who I think is in the vast minority as an atheist, as a black black atheist. How much Is that? Do you think that is playing into it? Because that in, I don't know if you noticed in Cornel West's article, there's some debate about this, like whether or not the Guardian, I think, is the website, if they automatically linked this or if he linked it, I do not know. But it went along with what he was saying. So I assumed that Cornel West linked it. But he hyperlinked another article on the Guardian that talked about about Coates's pessimism being based in his atheism, and it was written from a really weird angle that I just didn't understand, and how much do you think that's playing into it

0:10:48 Alix: Yeah, yeah.

0:11:22 Alix: I don't think you can separate it just because of the way that identity is coherent or how we interpret it. I mean, when you take a look at at Coates, he is very I don't want to say nihilistic, but he has a very pessimistic view because he can he can take a Look at it and say, where's the hope versus someone like Cornel West who will say there has to be hope because that has to to be our motivation. So I don't think that we can discount the religious orientations of either one of them. But what are you going to be holding on to? And I think that's really a big, big question because, you know, when I find myself, like Coates, being very pessimistic about race relations in the U.S., you know.

0:12:10 Alix: So what's the answer? I mean, for me, I've joked around and said Wakanda. I mean pick up and move. And that's the the answer? Well, when you take a look at someone like Dr. West, that can never be the answer. Are you going to throw away everything that was done here? Our differences aren't that vast or that dissimilar from some of the white disenfranchised poor whites or the ones that believe that they're disenfranchised. And again, it winds up being, you know, why is the African American in the position that they are in? And this has been a conversation that has been going That's been raging for over 100 years. And I don't think that we've been able to really figure out what that answer is. And I think that's what you're seeing, the manifestation of both of those those schools of thought, it's it's white supremacy versus, okay, white supremacy plays a role in it, but economic theory. And, yeah, I think that there's... there's definitely a religious view or religious lens that helps with some of that or

0:12:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:13:17 Thomas: And This is something I've noticed that depresses me. I I've seen the burn, because, you know, Cornel West is a big supporter of Bernie Sanders, and and I have said, say it every time, I voted Bernie in the primary and then I voted Hillary, just to give you my credit. I'm not a Bernie hater or anything. But I have noticed that there's a subset of people, this is not all Bernie supporters at all, it's probably a minority of them, but there's a subset who I think are using his economic message as a way to sort of deflect from any sort of racial policy change, from any sort of acknowledgement of racism as a problem. And I worry that Cornel West is feeding into that a little. Now, I know he wouldn't do that, but indirectly by saying, no, the answer is Bernie Sanders, not someone who would make more explicit racial policies or something like that.

0:14:10 Thomas: There's it's sort of been a way for, I think, a lot of white Bernie bros who don't like, quote, unquote, identity politics to say, hey, it's not about, you know, black people. It's about economics and and vote Bernie because he'll you know he'll punish the corporations, which is a weird overlap because I think it does overlap in a weird way. Because Dr. Cornel West is saying, we policy change in order to elevate everybody. And he might be right about that. But do you see that overlap? I'm seeing it a little bit on some of the Twitter personalities that have been on this.

0:14:44 Alix: Time you get a chance to take the sting out of racism or diminish the role of racism in how we interact in America, you will absolutely have people that are going to jump in and say, yes, I'm all about that message. In fact, we saw it in this example where Richard Spencer jumped in and said, hey, look, it's not about white supremacy. Dr. West said it. You don't even need Bernie Sanders as an example, although he's a great one, but that's a perfect example. Example, you actually have a white supremacist that is jumping up and saying, look, black people, it's not always about race. And absolutely, that's going to be the case because we always default to that anyway. We never want to talk about race in America, or we rarely or seldom want to Talk About Race. And there's always this level of racial or racism denial that comes with this conversation. So yes, Bernie Sanders didn't understand identity politics during the primaries And he played into that hand really unfortunately well. And yes, the disenfranchised white America and, you know, economically, if we can elevate everyone, everyone works better.

0:14:59 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:15:58 Alix: But that doesn't necessarily fix some of the racial issues that are endemic in America. It doesn't have an impact on systematic, if you believe in institutional racism, because obviously there are some people that don't believe that that happens at all. But I mean, it does affect some of them. Again, this is economic theory versus something like critical race theory. And there's a lot of overlap, but it still has an impact on people's motivations and how they see themselves. Quite often, the conversations that I get pulled in on is when people are talking about their victimhood and discrimination, et cetera, but these are white people that are talking about it. We're talking about 70% of the population that feels that 13% ofthe population is somehow victimizing them.

0:16:49 Alix: That conversation is still happening. And yet they're also saying that, you know, these 13 percent are blaming them for everything when, you know, that 70 some odd percent is is reaping the benefits of several years or several centuries of of institutionalized racism and and everything that goes with it. So you put that on the plate of someone who doesn't even believe in the concept of white privilege. And of course, they're going to run the other way. It's like, where's this white privilege that you talk of? Why am I still broke? Why am I still poor? Why am I not able to get into these free colleges that the blacks are able to get into? And you can see why it's so easy to fall into that bit. Yeah.

0:17:34 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. I think it's, from my point of view, I think it's interesting that I could agree on some policy changes with some of these people, like some of the anti-identity politics people. I could disagree that maybe a lot of Bernie's policies would be the best way to fix a lot problems without necessarily agreeing with their premise that, oh, it's all about economics. Well, no, I think that systemic racism has put put more black people in these lower socioeconomic ladders. And therefore, after that, yeah, sure, it's economics in some part. You know, like once you've systematically taken wealth from a community or prevented them from gaining wealth, then it becomes a socioeconomic problem in ways, in certain ways.

0:18:24 Thomas: And we could fix that problem or not fix it, but we could make it a whole lot better with some very progressive fiscal policy and economic policy. That would help if we had way better programs for anyone in the lower socioeconomic ladders. So it's a weird position where it's like, yeah, I agree with the things you want to do, but I disagree with your premise that it's not about race. You know what I mean?

0:18:52 Alix: Yeah, right.

0:18:52 Thomas: And I want to ask you about the atheism Christian thing again, because it is really interesting and it's really depressing, because in the wake of a lot of the stuff that's happened to me in the past year, I have very little faith in the online atheist community. It's been depressing. I think there's some great places in the community, but I think there's unfortunately a huge swath of people who are anti-progressives first. I really believe believe that a lot of this community is anti-progressive first. And an example of it is that in this debate between Dr. Cornel West and Ta-Nehisi Coates, where the key difference does come down to Coates is too pessimistic because he's an atheist, you know, and therefore because he is an atheist he must be a nihilist and he must not care about the effort to even fix racism.

0:19:45 Thomas: A lot of that I think is totally untrue. The atheism part is true, but everything The other stuff I don't actually think is true. But in the argument between the Christian and the atheist, that the atheists are siding with the Christian for anti-progressive reasons, I think, because they want to take down someone who is writing very compellingly about race. And that's depressing to me. I think that there's a fundamental misunderstanding, the same way that if it were a Christopher Hitchens debate and the Christian said, well, you must be a nihilist if you're an atheist, You know, Christopher Hitchens, you must not care about anything or anyone. Hitchens would very justifiably hitch slap them. But then all of a sudden when it's two black people and it's a black Christian saying, well, you know, he's too nihilistic and he doesn't have enough, you know, hope because he's an atheist. Then all ofa sudden the atheists aren't on the atheist side. Don't you think that's interesting?

0:20:18 Alix: I From my experience in the atheist community, it it doesn't surprise me at all. Because because still, when when you take a look at identities, you know, sometimes what just like black atheists, you know, white atheists, what what tends to be more important to people, and a lot of times it's sometimes it's really some sub subversive. But really, it's something that people take, take for granted. And it's their skin color, the privilege that comes with this skin color. Again, you have many people who would deny that skin color has any privileges at all. You know, it boils down to individuality and stop making excuses, etc. This idea of rugged individualism permeates both sides, whether whether it's Christian or it doesn't matter. And again, the facts and the reality, historical context also doesn't necessarily matter.

0:20:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:30 Alix: The statistics and the numbers that we would rally behind and say, well, the numbers don't lie. Well, they do in this instance, because it also shows that I'm somehow, know, I've also am partaking of this privilege and people don't want to hear Yeah.

0:21:49 Thomas: Let me ask you, for you personally as a black atheist, how has your your atheism shape the way you view things? Because what I'm seeing in, in this writing is, you know, a rejection, like Ta-Nehisi Coates rejects the idea of a moral arc to the universe, which was in a Martin Luther King, uh, speech, which by the way, I think is a little bit taken out of context, but that's a separate story. Um, but the idea that, that there's, that somehow it's like not it's, and we'll see it when we go through this Twitter thread that I have to read at some point, that somehow it's like anti-black in a way to not have faith that the moral arc of the universe is progressing. How do you think about that? Does your atheism make you more pessimistic about the future of race and relations in America?

0:22:38 Alix: Yes. Yeah. But but for I think for different reasons, I think it's it's more more pessimistic because I think I like to be more more more of a realist. Now, individually, I think I'm doing OK. I think that, you know, when it comes to the economics, I'm pretty OK. I'm not strong. I don't deal with the numbers that the majority of African-Americans deal with. So I consider myself, you Know, pretty fortunate in in those regards. But I still deal with The Up. Here you go. There's another glass ceiling. There's... there's another class ceiling and I still get followed. And I mean, so I still do with the reality of being black. And I say that I remove the idea that a god or godlike figure or deity is going to somehow intervene on my behalf, if I move that, then I have to take a look at the reality.

0:23:37 Alix: And this this is this is America. Progress happens really slowly. Race is a big problem. And when I you know, before 2016, I would say, you know. I can believe in people. I can have, quote unquote, faith in people that we're going to continue to move in in some type of forward progress. We're going to address some of the issues that we've been talking about addressing. And yet in 2016, November 2016, you know, that idea was squashed because we got dealt this big, massive backhand in terms of, you know, the president and what we're seeing rippled in the Senate and the House and all of Congress. So if I say God's not going to intervene, I have to say that people are going to be people and people are always motivated by their self-interest, which is which is another very different idea or motivation that someone like I or Coates or some of the other black historians have, like, you you know, racism is motivated by self-interest and you don't necessarily curtail that by education or economics. If you center it in, you know on something like self-interest, it becomes really harder to eradicate it.

And so you could probably say, well, outside of changing someone's ideological slant, which is difficult, you Know, it's really not going to bend. So people are going to continue to behave in their self-interest and move forward in propagating and pushing their ideas, their identities, and continue to make sure that they are safe.

0:25:18 Alix: And we saw that in November when white Americans said, oh, my God, I'm tired. I'm I'm scared. And this is how I'm going to react. And so they reacted that way. And so, yeah, I don't necessarily believe that there's going to be this because the world hasn't hasn't worked that way before.

0:25:26 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:25:35 Thomas: And it's to say on that. And I'm sure you'll have more to say on that when we go through this Twitter thread. I've got to do it because this just makes my blood boil. And I, I'm, I've, I, I'm not sure you have a lot of thoughts on this. So were you familiar with this, uh, with this person, Chloe Valdory before or no?

0:25:45 Alix: Yeah, I was not.

0:25:50 Thomas: Yeah, me neither.

0:25:50 Alix: I was not. I thank you for sharing that. I, yes.

0:25:54 Thomas: Well, she, uh. Again, it's, it' the kind of voice that gets, uh amplified when they say something that the, you know, the, the whatever you want to call them. The new center online likes, you know, when it's like a kind of anti-identity politics thing, then all of a sudden they're famous because all these right wing or kind of center right sources amplify them. So I had never heard of her before this, but this was the thread that Christina Hoff Summers and a bunch of other people retweeted. Oh, including that guy from the, I think it was the Yale campus controversy, the Christiakis guy. He also, yeah, he also retweetED this.

So it made the rounds, like it made the, you know, centrist kind of right-wing rounds. I thought it was funny. But anyway, here is Chloe S. Valdory on Ta-Nehisi Coates. I'll just go, maybe I'll go tweet by tweet. They're not very long. I'm sure you'll have a lot of thoughts. I started reading Between the World and Me a while ago, but stopped because I wanted to center my analysis of Coates in other readings by Baldwin, Dubois, Emerson, or Dubois. I'm sorry. Emerson and others. My conclusion after revisiting Coates was was revulsion and the feeling of an insult to my intelligence. So that's the start.

0:26:08 Alix: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

0:27:05 Thomas: Did you have that feeling when reading Coates?

0:27:08 Alix: No, not, not at all. And I've read every single one of the authors that she, that she talks about. No.

0:27:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I've only read half, but I've read, I want to read everything Coates has written. I'm almost through it, but I find him to be so brilliant. But anyway, this idea that his experience could be an insult to her intelligence is frustrating. Let's see how she explains that. So my thoughts. Yes, Coates is a beautiful writer, but beauty is no excuse for sanctimonious pity. The human experience is too varied and individual to allow the wholesale objectification of human beings, both black and white, and the elevation of despair and call it beautiful. What do you think about that?

0:27:49 Alix: On its face, this isn't, this Isn't bad. And I want to say that I really wanted to like the rest of the the rest, the rest of this Twitter, um, you know, rant that she had, but, but she started to lose me last sentence because I don't think, I don'T think that that's what Coates is doing. I mean, it's, it is, it's exactly, it'S his experience and it'S not everyone's experience. And even Even his conclusions are his conclusions based on his experience. And yes, some of it is, it can be filled with despair because what is, how do you plot out of this? You know, things like, you know, the quotes has had the argument reparations and we've done analysis on reparations.

And why, if that was ever going to happen, that wasn't going to happen immediately after or during reconstruction and after sort of, you know, a lot of, a lot of those conversations, the further and further away we get from, uh, from the real, what, what people would describe as the real evils and, and the lynching and all of that, the further away would get from that people begin to, you know, their memories get affected and their motivations begin to get affected, et cetera.

0:28:02 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. It's a straw man. Yeah,

0:29:05 Alix: I mean, you've got millennials now who don't understand the civil rights movement at all and are saying, my ancestors never owned slaves. So, but they continue to profit from this system. And so, yeah, I can understand how Coates gets back to the despair. So, again, she's building a little bit of a straw man.

0:29:27 Thomas: And let's, okay, I'll read the next tweet because this is where I think she really loses me. Uh, two: "If one were to excavate the rich minds of Black literature, perpetual despair is arguably anti our heritage and our legacy." Whether you're talking about music or books, there's great contradiction between Coates's books and many of our greatest writers that

0:29:46 Alix: Writers, speakers, are leaders. Because if you spend any time reading Malcolm X or Marcus Garvey or any of the Black revolutionaries who paint what the picture is of America, um, I don't think that you're going to see too much, you know, too much between them that that doesn't parallel. So I think she's wrong, just flat out wrong, when it comes to that.

0:30:07 Thomas: Exactly.

0:30:07 Alix: And I

0:30:07 Thomas: And what if he was just writing despair, would that, like, is he not allowed to do that because he's black? I don't understand what her point even would be. So, because she thinks black literature, which it sounds like you're saying from your point of view she's wrong, it would be amazing if you would find no historical black literature that was like despairing. That would be incredible to me. But the idea that because he is black, he can't despair about anything, thing because it's anti our heritage, in her words, anti black heritage, doesn't that seem insane to you? That really seems crazy to me.

0:30:46 Alix: I, but see, I understand what she's saying, it is, but I understand what she's saying, which is black heritage has to be filled with hope, because if not, why bother? So this goes into the nihilistic phase. If we don't have hope, if we are not looking or striving to survive or do more than survive, why bother? And yes, the African American heritage is filled with hope and beautiful stories, but it's also filled with despair and evils that we don't like talking about.

0:31:21 Thomas: Yeah, it just seems to me that if someone is writing about their personal experience, isn't it up to them whether or not they're despairing or not? I don't understand.

0:31:29 Alix: Totally is. And just as she started with talking about the varied experiences, well, Coates is one of those varied experiences.

0:31:39 Thomas: Exactly. Exactly, it goes, it directly contradicts what she just said, like now a minute ago you can't, you know, everybody's varied, and he writes too, you know, he, he objectifies everyone too much, and then she says, well, he writes something that's different than black heritage, so he's wrong, it's like, what? Yeah.

0:31:58 Alix: Right. But she's wrong because that's false. It's just not true. It is just not not true.

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. I, I don't know how much more we should go. Let's see here. One of the biggest flaws in Coats's way of thinking is in his projecting his trauma onto other people, both white and black. He assumes the worst in people because the worst happened to him. Um, everyone is reduced to an object. Black people's actions are a product of white people. White people are a project of white supremacy, which exists on a cosmic plane. Coast claims to be an atheist, but he isn't. He is superstitious about white power and writes like it's a deity. The, that's

0:32:34 Alix: Because people are obviously not influenced by media, by the social constructs. We don't get anywhere. We are completely, are autonomous objects. It's all about free will and our backgrounds don't mold or shape us at all. This is some of the same arguments That we heard during the Jim Crow era, same argument, same argument that that, oh, it can't be, you know, you can't paint a broad brush and say that that blacks here and whites there are are shaped by their background, which is. Yeah, exactly.

0:32:59 Thomas: Interesting, which idea, which, so which part are you picking out there is the same argument?

0:33:14 Thomas: Right, right, right. I see what you're saying. So it's kind of another reverse racism thing. Like if you say white people or there's white supremacy, then you're stereotyping white people and you're just as bad. Is that it? Yeah. And the other thing that bothers me so much about this is because what Ta-Nehisi does is art, essentially. I mean, it is art. It's very easy to just say, to assert something about it with no textual support, and then no one can really challenge you. You know what I mean? Or no one bothers to challenge you, and that's what's frustrating because we don't see any quotes.

Like, she's never like, okay, and I get it that it's Twitter, but she's doing like a you know, 20-tweet thread. She has some quotes of other authors later on. She never says, okay. Here's a quote where Ta-Nehisi Coates, you now, is doing some of the things I'm saying. She just says, oh, he's totally negative. If he totally stereotypes everyone as equal, you know, she never backs it up. And everybody who hasn't read Coates, I'm quite certain most of the people who pushed back against me on this haven't ever read any of Coates.

0:33:19 Alix: Exactly. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah

0:34:18 Thomas: Everybody could just say like, oh yeah, this is totally true. Totally true.

0:34:22 Alix: Well, yeah because it's an easy narrative to fall into. I mean, it really is if again anyone who is willing to absolve the white race of racism, you know is going to get a win. I mean, that's just that simple.

0:34:24 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah, and I don't know how much, let's see, is there anything more on this thread? But basically, I wanted to read it again in light and in the context of that That question I asked you earlier about atheism, because that seems to be pretty fundamental here, you know, that you can see it in her tweets that if you are despairing and if you are an atheist, that means you have no place in black literature, essentially, because you're not writing about hope and you're not you don't think anything can be fixed. And it's just a false assumption. It's a false assumption that, again, we would be pissed off if happened between Christopher Hitchens and, you know, that one Christian he always debated. You know, we'd be saying, oh, no, we can have hope and meaning and we can change and we Can, you Know, Try to Make Things Better.

0:35:24 Thomas: And then the minute it's put into the context of black authors, then all of a sudden, I think people aren't recognizing this for what it is.

0:35:32 Alix: Yeah I agree. Now there's... there's one of her tweets that I do want to talk about Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Because she- she's- she's- this is her seventh one. And it's like, you know, the white woman pushing his son could have only done so because of racism, because all Code sees is racism, because he believes racism is cosmic. Now, of course, this makes no sense at all. And it is baffling why anyone would think otherwise. Now the- the problem, the problem with this is- is discounting the- the role that racism, uh, does play. I mean, to say that you- that she's doing it and she's doing exactly what he's doing, if- without really understanding the motivations. And although if you read, read between, um, if

0:35:35 Thomas: Oh, great.

0:36:16 Thomas: Between the

0:36:17 Alix: You reading the book, yeah, Between New World and I, um, he actually goes into it a little bit more in depth and talks about it, um, but she's saying that, you know, you can't assume that it's racism that does so, but he gives the context, a very rich context of why it probably is. And she dismisses it completely because we can't be objects that are manipulated by these social influences. And yet as a Christian, she believes that there is actual manipulation of people's and people's hearts. So it goes back to the motivation of

0:36:17 Thomas: World and I? Yeah.

0:36:32 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:36:52 Alix: Of- of there being everyone's good and they're going to be moving in that direction. And yet I would say, then, what is the motivation as a Christian? I'd look at her and say, what's the motivation of your God? That gets a little bit into a deep discussion because, you know, I would- I would argue that if you believe that there is a true cosmic plan, well then what ist it for black people?

0:37:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why isn't her Christian cosmic plan happened better yet? I mean, why is it I mean why isn't that kicked in? You know, when when is God going to kick in with his plan has taken his time. But I think logically as well, I think I totally agree with what you said. And I think logically there's big problems in how she's strawmanning here. Like notice notice where she goes. She says the white woman pushing his son could only have done so because racism. Well, well, I don't think he would say that.

I think he would say, cause I've read, I just read this book and he describes it as you said, and I think he would save, I, he would say it was probably racism, probably racism involved. And then she says, because all Coates sees is racism because he believes racism is cosmic. It's like, no, he believes racism applies in a very fixed time and place in our society.

You know, like he's not, we're not out in outer space and something happened and he says, ah, cosmic racism, you know, this happened in a context. This happened in a place and a time and due to those factors he thinks racism is involved in what happened, you know?

0:37:27 Alix: Right.

0:38:21 Thomas: It's like it's a stretching and a strawmanning of his point to say that he thinks racism is cosmic and that's why he thinks this was racism. I mean, that's just very simple strawman.

0:38:32 Alix: You know, we get we get into this this specific argument all the time when it comes to police and police brutality. Right. Because it's like, oh, all you black people see is race. It's like the dude had a swastika tattooed on his back. And you're going to tell me race had nothing to do with it. OK,

0:38:38 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. My favorite, yeah, it's like those You'll see those Twitter threads occasionally where it's someone saying, oh, you just call everyone a Nazi. And then the next picture is like that exact Twitter profile tweeting like, you know, something about the Holocaust needing to happen again or, you you know, like literally Nazi-esque stuff. It's totally true. And it's, it's disturbing how much, you know like um, white power, uh organization has tried to infiltrate the police. And it is, it seems as though has successfully done so.

0:39:05 Alix: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yes. But of course, if you get into that, then you're you're even with the FBI reports and Obama talking about it even before the Trump, the Trump administration. If you bring that up, you wind up looking like another conspiracy theorist because where's the proof? And and that that level of, you know, of of denialism is really rooted, again, in self-interest. People don't like to think of the world. They don't want to see the world as we may think that it is. These are the same people that in September of last year said, you know, there's no way Trump wins. And February of last years, I'm telling you, I guaranteeing Trump is going to win. It's just different worlds and different experiences.

0:40:08 Alix: And I think we'd all be better if we stopped discounting everyone's experiences as just fantasy.

0:40:15 Thomas: Yeah, that's interesting. I wonder if also, if you wouldn't mind talking about, there's another thing I heard a lot from the MythCon shit lord people, which is a feeling that if a black person ever did something, then that means it can't be racist, you know, so like, for example, um, they were, they were really mad at me that the uh, black, the Congressional Black Caucus had also endorsed the the crime bill, the '94 crime bill. And and actually, it's really interesting, in in Ta-Nehisi Coates's book, book, the very one we're talking about here, Between the World and Me, he tells the story, and it's really painful. It's a really sad story about his friend, someone he knew.

I think his name is Prince Jones, I want to say, was killed by a police officer. And he talks about uh, and it turns out the police officer was black and uh he uh, but he still talks about it with just as much of a feeling that it's it's the product of a system, and it's a product of uh, specifically the policing of an, it's a black area actually, where the the police are like the worst. Uh, and what, what do you say when people try to pull that one off, like, okay, if if the, if the black caucus endorsed this bill, how could it be racist? Good

0:40:50 Alix: Yeah.

0:41:10 Alix: Well, Okay, so their first read, read, read, I just tell them is like, um, history, history.

0:41:43 Thomas: Luck with that.

0:41:43 Alix: I mean, it's, I know, I know, and it's very difficult, and this is where I talk about the historical context that is often missing in these conversations, because yes, the black caucus did endorse the crime bill, but there were other promises, and you listen to people like Charlie, who's written quite a bit on what the failings were of the crime bill. Yes, we had some issues. And yes, it wasn't that the crime bill was quote unquote racist. It was, it didn't follow through with the other pieces, or Bill Clinton didn't follow through with the other people. Bill Clinton talks about this, where he says the economic stimulation that he promised some of the caucus that would alleviate the, and this is the economic discussion, some of the poverty that was leading to some of those crimes, not skin color, but actual poverty.

0:41:44 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:42:36 Alix: That was the reason that the Black Caucus was saying, please help us, please please help us in our communities. You have many a black leader that says, yes, please, let's do that. Let's get tough on crime. Let's get the guns off the street. This is the nineties. So we still have crack and we also have some over policing because of course crack for some reason was being, you know, policed significantly more with harsher penalties, et cetera, than something like cocaine. Although they're basically the same drug, but that's irrelevant. It's a white drug. But where was the economic stimulus and the education package that was going to come with it? And that piece never came. And Bill Clinton talks about this in, I think it's one of the documentaries after the fact, but that never came, so it's not that the Black Caucus was endorsing a racist crime bill.

0:43:33 Alix: It was the way that America implemented And with the failed promises that never happened, it has some impact and the outcomes of it. Well, yeah, there were some racial overtones there. Again, how we policed African American communities, which, by the way, if you just spent any amount of time understanding the history of how we over criminalized African American community, communities and how we over-police them, the arguments tend to fall apart. I mean, do you really need to police one community that has the same crime rate as a white rural community, seven to one?

0:44:21 Alix: Well, no, you don't. But if you understand that that's the way that's always been done, and it's been done that way since 18 some odd, and then again in 1950 some odd and and then into the 60s, and then it just becomes tradition. Now, this is where we talk about institutional stuff that no one even remembers how we got there, but these policies are just there. Understand their past. Read, read.

0:44:41 Thomas: Yeah. And Right.

0:44:46 Alix: Not just history, just read.

0:44:49 Thomas: And, but also, there's... there's a totally, and and and there's... there's also, I think, a misconception that just as women can participate in patriarchy, black people can at times participate in white supremacy, right? I mean,

0:45:07 Alix: Absolutely. Absolutely, and I would argue that when, and of course, if I say this, I got to do the not all cops, right? Right. But but but as soon as you put on and I have this conversation with my kids because, you know, they'll ask me, can you define what a good cop is? Well, if you are a good crop and you're following all the laws and we can sit down and rationally say, well, some of these laws, the implementations are really racist. Are being a good cup means that you've got to enforce some of These racial laws. Because are you still, are you a good cop? Well, yeah. Does that make you a good person because you're just doing your job? I mean, we've heard the, I was just doing my job argument before and that doesn't hold up. So whether you're white or you're black and you're putting on the suit, if you gotta be a good cop, you sometimes you gotta do stuff that morally you would find revulsion.

0:45:15 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:46:06 Alix: Unrevolting. So, yeah, you can be a black person and uphold white supremacy. You can be woman and uphold patriarchy, et cetera. And sometimes we do wear blinders when it comes to it because, you know, a black cop has got to eat, too. Right.

0:46:23 Thomas: And isn't there... This is something that I've only read about, but in Michelle Alexander's book and in some some other books I've read, there's an interesting dynamic where because of the result of systemic racism and the fact that, and again, you almost have to, as you just did, you Almost have to try to give a quick summary every time to even establish what you're talking about. But because ever since reconstruction and Jim Crow and all this, where we systematically kept black people in lower socioeconomic status, we've kind of ghettoized them and not provided the same level of government service to them, roads, utilities, like all this stuff. There's all this stuff that coalesces into one thing. Because of that, crime has disproportionately affected black people.

0:47:10 Thomas: And so just as black people are being over-policed, they're also being disproportionately the victims of crime. And so there's also a dynamic throughout black history of sometimes participating in that tough on crime stuff, which turns out in the end to racism. And so I don't know if you have anything to say about that, but that's something I've only read about. Of course, I don'T, you know, I DON'T have direct experience, but an attitude of like black people, they're also wanting to be tough on prime, which then has made it easy to accidentally or intentionally become racist and become over policing and that kind of thing.

0:47:50 Alix: So now you see why someone like Coates gets very pessimistic quickly, because with all the quote unquote traps that are out there, how do you avoid that and how do You plan for hope? How do you plot something forward? And even this economic discussion, you know, there was a report just a couple of, oh, I guess maybe two or three months ago, that was talking about the inequality in black and white households. And we're looking at 171,000 was the average net wealth, quote unquote wealth. And so that includes the home and et cetera. And that wound up being roughly 10 times, 10 times the wealth that we see in the average black family. I mean, so how how do you address that and say, OK, if you even begin to plot that even further forward, you actually see that decline, especially with what we saw with the housing market and housing bubble and and the difficulty towards getting loans.

0:47:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah,

0:48:53 Alix: And we know that those difficulties are, are implemented because of a racist history, a racist past. So now you see why it's really easy to say, wait a minute. I know we used to talk about keep hope alive, but it's really difficult to keep that light going in the face of all this wind. And it's been a wind of change. It's been, you know, no, your problem is your problem. It's not as bad as my problem. And white America isn't looking so favorably when it comes to minorities today.

0:49:23 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. The wealth gap is, I think, even bigger than the income gap. And it's something that we don't often think about, but is even more indicative of the history, I think. Perhaps we can go out with, I, I think one of these last tweets by this Chloe Valdory person might give us an appropriate way to go out on this. She says, it's after the one that you read. "What is subtly apparent is the unprocessed, unhealed trauma of Coates' Baltimore experience being transferred onto everything else he encounters in life. This trauma is also cosmic." Where's the evidence of that? I don't know. "This trauma is also cosmic, the religious blueprint that informs relationships with, with everyone else, both black and white, and what is infuriating is the fact that the shallow acolytes worship at the altar of someone whose ideas conclude that we are nothing but objects, which is quite literally dehumanizing."

0:50:15 Thomas: "In other words, I am deeply insulted because the conclusion of Coates' books is that I am destined to aimlessly struggle against the great deity that is whiteness. The conclusion is that I am not a human being." Wow, talk about an uncharitable read. What?

0:50:34 Alix: Love that, I absolutely love that, are you kidding? It's one.

0:50:38 Thomas: Um, how could atheists possibly endorse this? This is her saying, you know, like I, I really think that's the key to this is probably her Christian faith, which is telling her, you know if someone's an atheist, that means they think you're an object, you know? It's like, what? I mean, that doesn't necessarily follow.

0:50:54 Alix: Um, the, okay, so again, with the black Christian liberation theology or the black Christian, um, tradition, I mean, the, the national anthem is "We Shall Overcome." I mean, that, that's, that's how it starts. "We shall overcome someday." And this goes to the tradition that she continues to talk about where it is hope-based. And I love that. Is that realistic? I don't know. I don't think that there's evidence to show that, you know, that right now, today, that that's where we're going, 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now, maybe, maybe we can glom onto that if trends really change.

0:51:43 Alix: But I don't think that we have a lot of strong evidence that that's happening. Not when you take a look at it at a macro level and we hear these wonderful individual stories from people left and right and how they're succeeding and don't paint me as just a color. I'm more than, than that. And that's, that's a beautiful sentiment. But when we take a big look at those racial demographics, it's kind of hard to maintain that sense of hope. It's really hard to say that systematically we're on a road to really healing and as the races individually.

0:52:25 Thomas: Yeah. And, and I, I just, I, really resent what she's saying, which is essentially a black author's obligated to some sort of hope, otherwise they're a disgrace to black history, you know, like it, it blows my mind that, that, that seems to be what she's saying here, you know, I do, why isn't, why isn't some just a person allowed to not necessarily be hopeful, that doesn't even mean that that's, that's what, what bugs me about it too, and why I keep tying in the atheism thing is this leap to nihilism, like where do you get, I, I don't feel like Coats is nihilistic, do you, did, has that been in his writings, I mean, it's one thing to say go ahead, yeah, yeah,

0:53:04 Alix: No, I, I don't, yeah, no, I don't think it's nihilistic. I, I don't think a lot of people like what his conclusions are, but, you know, that doesn't necessarily mean that he's right or he's nihilistic. And again, if you, if you spend a lot of time studying history, it's like, you know, I'm, I would say that, that if we, if we stop with the, the optimism and some of the optimism isn't rational, the optimism is not always rational. Hope hope isn't always rational, but, but that optimism.

0:53:30 Thomas: Yeah, I would feel like now more than ever we should all be able to recognize that Hope is sometimes not really rational, like, I, if anything, it was like that um, that great SNL skit when Trump was elected, where like the white people in the room were like, "this is not happening, there's no way, this can't happen." And then the black people, the room were like, "no, this, this is, this makes sense. Yeah. It's like, if anything, this Is, you know, that makes more sense than this, which is that black people have to be hopeful. They're required to be, if they're going to be an author, I just drove me nuts. And I have to point out that this had nothing whatsoever to do with Cornel West. So like, you Know what I mean? Like this is unless I'm wrong, like, unless you can feel free to poke holes in my theory at any time, but like, does this have anything to do? With Cornel West's criticism that he doesn't write about drone strikes and economics as much.

0:53:37 Alix: Yeah, totally. Yep. Yeah.

0:54:26 Alix: No, no, no. Not at all. Not at All. And, and honestly, I, uh, I think that unfortunately during the last, um, I'll go on a, on a pro Cornel West tirade for a second. I think a lot of his points, a lot of his points were ignored, and we know that some black journalists did ignore and did not criticize President Obama because of who he was. We had people like Al Sharpton outright say that, you know what, they're going to tone down their criticisms of the presidency because this is the first black president and everyone else is going to be taking a shot at him because he's the first Black president, which wound up being true. And so they turned down or tuned down their criticisms.

But some of Dr. West's criticisms are, you know, are legitimate. You know, when we talk about the drone strikes, when we talk about specific economics within the African-American community, when we talk about crime and investing, etc., I mean, these are issues that, you know, to a certain extent, transcend any presidency because of America's history. It's going to be an ongoing issue and you can't fix it in eight years, especially when you have the majority in two years in, you have the majority of the Congress that is working against you. You have, you know, the leader of the Senate that is saying that the minority leader of the Senate, they're saying they're going to try and make you the one term president.

0:54:39 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah,

0:55:57 Alix: I mean, it's hard to overcome that. So, yes, the drone strike issue, the poverty issue, et cetera. That is all very legitimate discussion that needs to happen and should have happened. But this is where we're at. And same thing with Tavis Smiley at one point. Him and Dr. West were almost doing a tour, an anti-Obama tour. And many African Americans were like, wait, how can you do this? You're adding to this chorus, this anti-Obama cacophony that was just really trying to destroy and tarnish his image. And for someone like Dr. West, it's like the black experience will transcend Obama. The people are more important than this figurehead and this symbol. I understand that at its root. I understand that. But, yeah.

0:56:49 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. No, totally. I think, and that's absolutely, nowhere did I want to say that none of these people or us or anybody are beyond criticism. I just found it shocking the way he went about it. And especially because I'm someone who, you know, I like Cornel West and previously never would have thought that he would, you know, write this kind of thing that would lead to Ta-Nehisi Coates deleting his Twitter. Like, I just never would've thought it. But I also think it's appropriate when we're criticizing Obama to put him in context as the best president that there has been in our lifetime. Like, absolutely criticize him when he doesn't, you know, meet your expectations or his expectations.

But but still, like you recognize that in the context of where he should be, you know, he should have been so much more highly regarded on the right. But racism drove just absolutely insane attacks on him and put him in in that context of, yes, he had some flaws that that presidents have had. And, you know, it's a topic for another show, but I would, in my opinion, I quibble with Cornel West's view of foreign policy because I've been listening to so much of the podcast by the ex-Obama people and so many of these decisions are just not as easy as we think they are, where it's like, oh, you can just stop doing anything and then everything will be fine.

It's not, you intervention or nothing. It's a bunch of people die or we intervene and then some people die. Like it's a constant balancing of trying to find the right answer. And I don't necessarily think things are as simple as he painted them out to be in his article, but topic for another show.

0:57:16 Alix: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:58:33 Thomas: So with that, let me give you the final word. If there's anything you want to say about all this, you knows, this whole debacle.

0:58:33 Alix: Keep reading.

0:58:43 Alix: I would say that, you know, you have two very prolific authors. You know, if you get a chance to sit down and read both of them, you're not going to miss anything. You said it right earlier. There's a very complimentary feel to both sides of this argument. And they're very additive. And I don't think they take anything from each other. Read them both.

0:59:06 Thomas: Hmm. Go from? Absolutely. I'm still working my way through Ta-Nehisi Coates and maybe I'll have to check out a Cornel Wes book after to kind of compare. But thank you so much, Alix Jules, for joining me, as always. I thank you for bearing with me on a bit of a different format where I had definitely more ranting than I normally do in an interview, but I had prepared to do this by myself. So I'm so glad that you joined me, though, because it was much better.

0:59:38 Alix: Thank you very much for the invite.

0:59:40 Thomas: All right. Hey, do you want to toss out your usual plugs where people can find you?

0:59:43 Alix: Me? You can definitely find me off Facebook, and it's Alexjules on Facebook, um, Alex331 on Twitter, and you can still find me, uh, the Graffiti Wall every once in a while when I have a chance to sit down and write myself, and that's, uh, the Graffiti Wall and Patheos.

0:59:59 Thomas: Excellent. Alix Jules, a pleasure as always!

1:00:01 Alix: Thank you.

1:00:23 Thomas: To Alix Jules, such a great conversations. After going over it again I do wanna emphasize that I actually do think probably the best way to get the most amount of, I don't know, justice or recompense or whatever you want to call it for systemic racism is probably through some Bernie-esque fiscal policy, economic policies. I actually do believe that's true.

I just want to mention that again because I don't want to alienate any of my Bernie supporters and anyone going into 2020 who's going to be looking for that very far left progressive economic policy because I agree with you. I actually do think we need that. I think it's probably our best hope of fixing. The situation better because so much of what racism has done is in the form of economic consequences and policy that will help people on the lowest rung of the socioeconomic ladder will inevitably help people of color a lot, that appeases people who don't recognize systemic racism. You know, it's kind of a race-neutral fix that, which, because I'm a pessimist, I guess, I think is the only fix we're ever really going to get. I just wanted to add that in because I do think there's a ton of common ground there, even if there's not full agreement on, like, causes of things and all that.

I think there is a lot of room to work, and no matter how far you want to get into this rabbit hole of researching how bad systemic racism has been, if you already agree maybe that, like, the best thing for our country is a sort of Bernie Sanders-esque economic policy,

1:02:09 Thomas: Then we almost can kind of bypass pass it a little bit and can just kind of agree on the end result of a major part of what we need to do. Not all of it, but of a big part of what we needs to do, so those are my closing thoughts on that. Great conversation again. Thank you so much for listening, and have a happy new year. I know this will come out right around New Year's Eve. I usually release it at midnight, and it happens to be midnight Eastern, that is, on December 31st, so happy new years. I, for one, am still dealing with 2016, I can't believe 2017 is over and I still, I feel like the consequences of 2016 were so enormous that I'm sort of, my brain is kind of stuck in a 2016 rivet, but now we're in, we're now in 2018, but good 2018 is an election year, midterm election year so, it, hopefully it'll be a good one. Alright, thank you guys so much for listening, I'll see you on Thursday.