Truthy
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In short, the thesis of Ta-Nehisi Coates' latest essay latest essay is that Trump is the "first white president" in the sense that whiteness requires the presence of people of color--especially Black people in the case of the US--against whom whites can define themselves. Continuing from this starting point, we see Trump capitalized on whiteness by making "the negation of Obama's legacy the foundation of his own." So Trump is "the first president whose entire political existence hinges on the fact of a black president," thus marking Trump's election as the introduction of (contra Black) whiteness to the space of presidencies.
The main aspect of the essay has a lot of important content. However, my main interest with this thread is the dialog Coates has with Obama. He spends a lot of time arguing with Obama:
On white working class issues vs black working class issues, Obama says:
The main aspect of the essay has a lot of important content. However, my main interest with this thread is the dialog Coates has with Obama. He spends a lot of time arguing with Obama:
On white working class issues vs black working class issues, Obama says:
Coates:These days, what ails working-class and middle-class blacks and Latinos is not fundamentally different from what ails their white counterparts [what ails them = "downsizing, outsourcing automation, wage stagnation," etc.]... blacks in particular have been vulnerable to these trends [for reasons of geography and job-sector distribution]
On why the GOP was so hell-bent on obstructing everything Obama did:This notion—raceless antiracism—marks the modern left, from the New Democrat Bill Clinton to the socialist Bernie Sanders. Few national liberal politicians have shown any recognition that there is something systemic and particular in the relationship between black people and their country that might require specific policy solutions.
Coates:It was thought by Obama and some of his allies that this toxicity was the result of a relentless assault waged by Fox News and right-wing talk radio.
On the importance of whiteness, Obama:Trump’s genius was to see that it was something more, that it was a hunger for revanche so strong that a political novice and accused rapist could topple the leadership of one major party and throttle the heavily favored nominee of the other.
On why Clinton lost, Coates talks about how Sanders and Biden offered very white explanations: Clinton focused too much on identity politics and fundraising and was out of touch with the working class, which Coates uses as evidence that they're doing the typical liberal thing of sidestepping the importance of the racial bargain. Though Obama criticized Clinton for similar reasons in November:Obama himself, underestimating Trump and thus underestimating the power of whiteness, believed the Republican nominee too objectionable to actually win. In this Obama was, tragically, wrong.
My intention isn't to say Coates is wrong because Obama, but to ask why Obama turned out to be one of his main interlocutors. What does Obama actually believe? What does Obama know that Coates doesn't and what does Coates know that Obama doesn't (or refuses to say publicly)? What's the correcting weighting of the whiteness thesis and the more conventional interpretations offered by Obama, Biden, Sanders, and most liberal commentary?You know, I won Iowa not because the demographics dictated that I would win Iowa. It was because I spent 87 days going to every small town and fair and fish fry and VFW hall, and there were some counties where I might have lost, but maybe I lost by 20 points instead of 50 points.
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