CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil was right to point out that the writings of far-left race baiter Ta-Nehisi Coates sounded like it belonged “in the backpack of an extremist.” In a recent appearance on comedian Trevor Noah’s podcast “What Now?,” Coates engaged in a “thought experiment” where he suggested that he wasn’t above taking part in an October 7-style terrorist attack that saw hundreds of innocent Jewish women, children, and elderly raped, murdered, and kidnapped back to Gaza.
Before getting to the point where Coates felt comfortable flaunting his extremism, he and Noah had a very disingenuous and, frankly, hypocritical, conversation about Dokoupil’s takedown of Coates:
DOKOUPIL: When I read the book? I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away. The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.
After playing that soundbite of Dokoupil, Noah ranted that, “Yes, but if you remove every context from everything, then everything could go anywhere.” He then proceeded to compare the October 7 slaughter of civilians to the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution:
You know what I mean? If you remove America's history and America's this – then it's like, yeah, those people who fought against the British, they were terrorists. You know what I mean? You can call it like, yeah, the Boston Tea Party. That's terrorism. If you remove the context, everything has no context.
What made that comparison particularly braindead was the fact that the Sons of Liberty’s actions involved targeting the revenue stream of the crown, and they didn’t rape and murder innocent women, children, and elderly in the process.
Omitting the part of the CBS interview where Dokoupil pressed Coates on why he left out the all the important context that Israeli civilians had been targets for terrorist attacks for decades, Noah hypocritically wanted to know why people like Dokoupil wanted to strip out the context: “And I, I'd like to know from you. Like maybe like, why you think people do that? Why do they remove all context when speaking about Israel, Palestine?”
After dancing around the question for a bit and talking about Dukoupil’s co-anchors Gayle King (who he admitted shared her questions with him) and Nate Burleson, Coates tried to apply American history to the Israel/Palestinian conflict; examining October 7 through the lens of an uprising of slaves (Click “expand”):
The example I think about all the time is like Nat Turner, right? Like Nat Turner launches his rebellion in 1830. This man slaughters babies in their cribs. You know what I mean? Like and I've like done this thought experience – this experiment for myself over and over.
Does the degradation and dehumanization of slavery make it so that you can look past something like that. And I try to imagine and I think I can accurately imagine as much as possible that there were enslaved people no matter how dehumanized that said this, “this is too far, I can't do that.”
Pivoting to trying to put himself in the shoes of a Palestinian man, Coates spewed Hamas false propaganda about the conditions in Gaza before the war and suggested that if he lived there, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from taking part in an October 7-style attack:
Now, here's the flip side of it. And I haven't said this out loud, but I think about it a lot. Were I 20 years old, born into Gaza, which is a giant open-air jail. And what I mean by that is if my father is a fisherman and he goes too far out into the sea, he might get shot by somebody off of, you know, side of Israeli boats. If my mother picks the olive trees and she gets too close to the wall, she might be shot. If my little sister has, you know, cancer and she needs treatment because there are no, you know, facilities to do that in Gaza. And I don't get the right permits. She might die.
And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty, and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say, “this is too far.” I don't know that I am. You know, I don't know that I am.
Seemingly defending that position, Coates then took to criticizing white people who say they wouldn’t have owned slaves if they were alive back then.
“I always tell people, you know, like they think if they lived in the time of slavery that they would not have been enslavers. And I was like, you would have! You would have because it's a system! And most human beings, you know, we exist within within context. Within context,” he declared in frustration.
But this was just another instance of Coates striping out important context and making up history. There obviously were people who didn’t own slaves because Abraham Lincoln was elected president (majority in the Electoral College and a plurality in a 4-way race), and then there were the upwards of 750,000 Union soldiers who died fighting the Confederacy.
“This idea that there can be some triumphant heroic individual who's gonna go above and beyond that. That just, that's not a real thing. That's not history,” he huffed.
Coates should make himself familiar with Cassius Marcellus Clay The Lion of White Hall, who was born to a planation-owning family in Kentucky but became an iconic abolitionist who killed many slave owners in duels over it, and was the man who pressured Lincoln into signing the Emancipation Proclamation.
That is history.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
What Now? With Trevor Noah
(…)
TREVOR NOAH: Let me ask you a question about, you know, like on a human level, I honestly have to ask you this because I very seldom get angry on people's behalves. But man, we haven't been able to stop talking about the CBS interview.
TA-NEHISI COATES: Wow.
NOAH: Like, and I mean, when I say we, I don't just mean the people who make this podcast, I mean, like my friends, people online people.
COATES: Really? I'm totally off.
[Crosstalk]
NOAH: Let me fill you in. Let me fill you in. I don't think you understand the shockwave that interview created not because of what you said, but because of the way people felt like you were treated. Just, just the opening self of that conversation. And I'll never forget the question that you get asked where I think it's Tony who says to you—
[Cuts to video]
TONY DOKOUPIL: When I read the book? I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away. The content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.
[Cuts back to live]
NOAH: Yo. I sat there, I don't get flabbergasted by much. I genuinely don't. I sat there and I was like, “what?” My first thought was, “Yes, but if you remove every context from everything, then everything could go anywhere.” You know what I mean? If you remove America's history and America's this – then it's like, yeah, those people who fought against the British, they were terrorists.
COATES: Right.
NOAH: You know what I mean? You can call it like, yeah, the Boston Tea Party. That's terrorism. If you remove the context, everything has no context.
COATES: Right.
NOAH: And I, I'd like to know from you. Like maybe like, why you think people do that? Why do they remove all context when speaking about Israel, Palestine?
COATES: I am – I've been trying to process why I wasn't so insulted. I think it's a couple of things. I think like, I love all of those awards and accolades, but they're not really me. So okay, you take them away, it's fine. You know what I mean? I'm still me.
I think also I have been in this in terms of the research and the writing, you know, from, you know, over a year now. And I guess again, I don't know – I keep saying this – how much the extent to which Palestinians have been pushed out of the frame. Understanding how much of this was a third rail.
I really like, I, I knew this was coming even though like, you know, right to exist. Like I knew like the state's rights to like I've, I, I it was like, you've been, you know, like shadowboxing and waiting for a fight and you see somebody throw the left that you've seen your sparring partner throw like 1000 times by then. And I figured at some point it was gonna be a fight, you know, I didn't know it was gonna be right then. But I figured at some point it was gonna be a fight.
I wanna say something that actually is really important. The thing that went wrong in that interview more than anything, as far as I'm concerned, is – Gayle King is a great journalist and a great interviewer. And um, Gayle came behind the stage before we went and she had gone through the book – and I'm not saying she like agreed with the book. She was like, I'm gonna ask you about this. I want to ask you about that. I want to, it was like –
NOAH: Gayle, is considered. If there’s one thing Gayle King is, it's considered, but she didn't speak.
COATES: It was her handwritten notes, her handwritten notes were in there. You know what I’s saying? She had all these things and I think while on the one hand, he probably did me a service. You know what I mean? By just kind of commandeering that interview. I don't think he did Nate and Gayle a service and I'm really, really sorry for them.
I -- more than anything. I can take care of myself. You know, I'm good. I'm good. Like I said, I've been hearing these arguments, I've been rehearsing, I've been so, you know, if this is what you want to do, I'm okay doing it. Like, I'm good. I was okay. I left, shook his hand. I'm okay. Don't – don't cry for me, I'm sure you know that that interview will sell a lot of books.
Because the fact of the matter is, that reaction, is actually endemic of what I'm actually writing about.
NOAH: Yeah, it is.
COATES: There is no way in the world you can imagine a journalist who took the other side of that coming on here and somebody's saying if we took away the cover, if we took away the awards, we took away – I feel like I would find this in the backpack of a settler colonialist.
NOAH: Yeah!
COATES: You can't even imagine that, that framing it doesn't exist. It's like 10 steps that need to happen before and they aren't there, they aren't even there. You know what I mean? And so I think to your point, sorry, I'm taking a long time to answer your question.
NOAH: No, no, this is why we're here. This is a long time. There's no 20 seconds here, by the way. That's the whole point of a podcast. We don't have 20 seconds.
COATES: But to your point, removing the context, I think is actually essential. You know what I mean? Because if you start asking “why,” then you really, really start to get into trouble.
I mean, one of the things I've really tried to maintain both personally and in, you know, my public presentation is obviously my great horror at maybe not, obviously, but my great horror at, at October 7th. The fact that I don't say that perfunctorily, but I say it because at the core of my politics is human life and human life really, really matters to me. And thus, by that same token, if human life matters on October 7th, it should have mattered on October 6th and October 5th too. And understanding that, that it didn't.
When I went over to travel, to the West Bank and to Israel and I was up and down the country. I went to Jesus from Haifa, Jerusalem, South Hebron Hills, Hebron itself, Lid, Tel Aviv. What they told me was Gaza's worse. Is, I know you've seen some stuff and you – Gaza – and this is obviously before October, they said Gaza is worse.
NOAH: Wow.
COATES: And I was trying to get there. But there's, you know, all sorts of things in terms of press access and everything that I, that I couldn't. And so, I just think like, is there room in the world? And I don't think there is right now. I actually don't think there is to have genuine, genuine horror.
And what happened on October 7th to feel like there really isn't a world in which or reason that I can apprehend. I'm not Palestinian, I'm Ta-Nehisi Coates that I can apprehend for justifying anything like that. And yet understanding at the same time that things have histories that they have in, in the course of events.
The example I think about all the time is like Nat Turner, right? Like Nat Turner launches his rebellion in 1830. This man slaughters babies in their cribs. You know what I mean? Like and I've like done this thought experience – this experiment for myself over and over.
Does the degradation and dehumanization of slavery make it so that you can look past something like that. And I try to imagine and I think I can accurately imagine as much as possible that there were enslaved people no matter how dehumanized that said this, “this is too far –
NOAH: Yeah. Yeah.
COATES: - I can't do that.”
Now, here's the flip side of it. And I haven't said this out loud, but I think about it a lot. Were I 20 years old, born into Gaza, which is a giant open-air jail. And what I mean by that is if my father is a fisherman and he goes too far out into the sea, he might get shot by somebody off of, you know, side of Israeli boats. If my mother picks the olive trees and she gets too close to the wall, she might be shot. If my little sister has, you know, cancer and she needs treatment because there are no, you know, facilities to do that in Gaza. And I don't get the right permits. She might die.
And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty, and the wall comes down. Am I also strong enough or even constructed in such a way where I say, “this is too far.” I don't know that I am. You know, I don't know that I am.
You know, and I – and I just – I just wish we had room to work through that, you know what I mean? And, and, and to think about that and, and, and to talk about that.
And I think that is not unique to Israel, that is not unique to Palestine, that is not unique to Zionism. That is human history. That's human beings. I always tell people, you know, like they think if they lived in the time of slavery that they would not have been enslavers. And I was like, you would have!
NOAH: Yeah.
COATES: You would have because it's a system! And most human beings, you know, we exist within –
NOAH: That we exist within a system. We do.
COATES: --within context. Within context. And without that, you know what I mean? This idea that there can be some triumphant heroic individual who's gonna go above and beyond that. That just, that's not a real thing. That's not history.
(…)
