David Brooks: Listening to Ta-Nehisi Coates While White

The New York Times ^ | July 17, 2015 | David Brooks

[EveningStar]

... the disturbing challenge of your book is your rejection of the American dream. My ancestors chose to come here. For them, America was the antidote to the crushing restrictiveness of European life, to the pogroms. For them, the American dream was an uplifting spiritual creed that offered dignity, the chance to rise ...

Your definition of “white” is complicated. But you write “ ‘White America’ is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining).” In what is bound to be the most quoted passage from the book, you write that you watched the smoldering towers of 9/11 with a cold heart. At the time you felt the police and firefighters who died “were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.” ...

But I have to ask, Am I displaying my privilege if I disagree? Is my job just to respect your experience and accept your conclusions? Does a white person have standing to respond? ...

[EveningStar]

New York Times Columnist David Brooks Blasted for White Privilege Letter to Ta-Nehisi Coates

[BenLurkin]

[windcliff]

He’s being raked over the coals on Twitter.

[hosepipe]

Suppository’s?.......... indeed..
David Brooks is quite sub-human...
Sphincter ramblings..

[mrsmel]

If he had any spine this would open his eyes all the way but if he’s like most public figures he’ll just cave and fall back into line.

[BenLurkin]

Ear plugs

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Engaging slimebags very often leads to getting slime on you.

[Savage Beast]

"America was the antidote to the crushing restrictiveness of European life, to the pogroms."

Guess what, David! America now has crushing restrictiveness and its own version of pogroms!

[windsorknot]

Is there a cure for Ta-Nehisi Coates?

[needmorePaine]

It’s funny that Brooks was trying to disagree with Coates, but he still came across as a groveling, guilt-ridden worm.

[mojito]

Both Brooks and Coates are con artists.

They just play to different audiences.

Coates plays Stepin Fetchit for the Social Justice Warrior crowd.

Brooks like to act the part of Ward Cleaver (if Ward were a progressive Jew) to the mischievous children of the Slimes editorial page.

And unless you're all in on progressive nut-jobbery, their acts are trite, tedious and nonsensical.

[chuckee]

“Brooks was trying to disagree with Coates, but he still came across as a groveling, guilt-ridden worm.”

That is a requirement for the job of house “conservative” at the New York Times.Pay is based on the grovel quotient there.

[Servant of the Cross]

It’s funny that Brooks was trying to disagree with Coates, but he still came across as a groveling, guilt-ridden worm.

And yet he's .... being raked over the coals on Twitter for it.

Poor David. Not.

[wideawake]

What's being ignored is that Coates' book is effectively a manifesto for Afrocentric atheism.

White leftists absolutely love it.

For all other audiences besides white leftists it is unappealing.

[tet68]

Does a white person have standing to respond? ...

If you have to ask, the answer is no.

[Brad from Tennessee]

[In what is bound to be the most quoted passage from the book, you write that you watched the smoldering towers of 9/11 with a cold heart. At the time you felt the police and firefighters who died “were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body.” You obviously do not mean that literally today. . .]

Of course he means it “literally today,” David—you pampered metrosexual. Coates manifests the same blind hatred that results in black-on-white brutality every hour of the day.