Quote:
Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan
I've been reading Coates at the Atlantic and other places for well over a decade and that's not a characterization of him and his writing that I would say sticks. He's very good at painting pictures of his upbringing in Baltimore, of his studies of French, of his family. None of that is grievance. It's his reality, which is different from my reality. I find it really interesting and informative. I didn't pick up his run on Black Panther, but it got mixed reviews.
Yes, he talks about reparations and what is and has been done to black bodies. But he talks about a lot of other things too.
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I scanned his canon at
The Atlantic. It's roughly 80% focused on race and social justice matters. I understand that's his brand, so I don't hold it against him. Everybody's got to pay the mortgage.
But if Tabbi can pull off writing about so many disparate subjects (police brutality [
I Can't Breathe], banking crisis [
Griftopia], civil justice system unfairness [
The Divide], numerous political campaigns [
Insane Clown President, Smells Like Dead Elephants, Spanking the Donkey], media bias [
Hate, Inc.], general societal delusions [
The Great Derangement]), and Coates is ostensibly just as gifted a writer, why is Coates self-limiting?
And more importantly, why is Coates adored here, while Taibbi is scorned? I'd say West puts his finger on it - Coates offers banal but intellectual-sounding analysis that upper middle class people find palatable. He's a significantly gelded form of radical chic. One can deal with him, where someone like West, who understands the issues in greater detail, is uncompromising.
I'd love the meet Colonel West (I have friend who did and said the experience was highly enlightening and entertaining). I've heard West and Taibbi go back and forth in several interviews and podcasts and even when I don't agree, I'm challenged and I have my mind changed. West has his shit down, and the two of them are formidable as all fuck when they agree. I could be wrong, but Coates strikes me as someone who'd be a supreme bore, unable to crack comedic, most interested in appearing erudite rather than actually saying anything truly revelatory.
