Have We Missed The Message? with Ta-Nehisi Coates [VIDEO]

When I was growing up, from good times all the way to Fresh Prince, I was seeing a different type of blackness where it wasn't its full complexity. And so I was like, we've got to get to that.
And then the music filters to us, and the style filters to us, the vibe filters. You get what I'm saying? I do.
And because it is novel and because it seems to be completely, like, you know, devoid of all conflict and struggle in a weird way, we aspire to it.

And then I came to America, and then I met black Americans who were all like, man, I can't wait to get to Africa. Man, I can't wait.
They're like, man, I gotta... And I was like, wait, what? I was like, wait, wait.
My cousins were trying to sound like Tupac. Right, right, right.
You know what I mean? My cousins were trying... And I was like, wait, we're trying to come here, and you're trying to come here.
Yes, yes, here. Ta-Nehisi Coates is not just one of the sharpest and most beautiful writers working today.
Every time he puts something out, it seems to shake the world. The case for reparations, Between the World and Me, his work on Black Panther.
And his new book, The Message, is no different. Because in it, he travels to South Carolina to tackle book banning.
He goes to Senegal to rediscover roots that he's not sure he has. And then he delves into one of the most difficult subjects in the world today, Israel-Palestine.
Most people know his work, but very few people know the man behind the words. And so this week, I sat down with him and my good friend Christiana to get into the conversations that he doesn't always get to have and try and figure out how and why he sees the world the way he does.
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It's kind of like the room service of medical care. Thanks to Amazon, healthcare just got less painful so yeah man Ta-Nehisi welcome man thanks for having me this is what we're gonna do the whole show because we can I can keep going actually that's the first thing I do want to ask you is like do you ever feel like do you ever miss being treated like a normal human being because so many people I think see you as only an intellectual body yes that i don't know how many people just like shoot the shit with you well fortunately i have family and friends who really don't care they just don't care you know i've been thinking about this a lot this week it's very very important like um i'm a writer and so that gives me a kind of status right yeah but i am rarely the smartest person in any room.
I'm not the funniest. I'm not the best looking.
I'm not the most athletic. And so that's good.
It's good to be reminded. You know what I mean? That the thing out here, this is the abnormal thing.
You know what I mean? And then there's life. Do you pop into the abnormal thing and then you live mostly life? I try to stay as far away from the abnormal thing as I can.
It's very deceptive. And I think it can damage people.
So what's this like, going fully back into the abnormal thing, promoting a book? You know, it's dangerous in a very particular way. I think this sort of thing is always dangerous, but it's dangerous in a particular way because you actually are speaking on behalf of another group of people.
It's not really your story for a lot of it. And so you're trying to take extra care with it while at the same time still being you.
For sure. Frankly, I don't know how long this can go on for.
What do you mean by that? I just, you know, there are, and we've experienced this as black people, like watching maybe white people who end up in spaces that we cannot be and advocate for us and it's like I don't there's just great danger in being that person you know what I mean and there are people who I mean this is like where my darkest thoughts go there are people who profit off of those positions you know what I mean like you know I have I really, really need to say. And then I really, it's very important that I get out the way.
You know, like it's really, really important. And I, you know, go on the next, you know.
That's an interesting thought because you, I think everyone has a different example of it in their heads. But I know for a fact, I've seen people who, you know, it's seldom writers.
I think more people on social media where they sort of traffic in the pain and suffering of others. At first, they're bringing awareness to it.
And then at some point you're like, yo, is this how you make your money now? That's what I'm talking about. That is what I'm talking about.
They're almost like ambulance chaser lawyers where you go, I don't know if you actually care that people got hurt at work. I feel like this is how you make your money now.
That's it. So you're concerned about like people conflating somehow the things you're discussing with the project you're making and saying you're the spokesperson now.
Yes, yes, yes. But I would say even more deeply, like my intention, my intention is to make room within the frame for people who have been pushed out of it.
That is my intention. So it's not even like a, it is a concern about perception, but there's a deeper concern about purpose.
I think like one of the questions I often, or I've gotten over the past few days, are you worried about the pushback? Are you worried about the blowback? Not really. I mean, I kind of knew what that was and I knew what was going to happen going into it.

But, you know, once the attention started, I think the thing I immediately began worrying about was becoming the guy and not clearing space for people who really, truly, truly, truly know and can really, really speak in a way that I actually cannot.

It's difficult, though. I, you know, so i remember when i started on the daily show and

like christiana has been with me almost like from the beginning because when did you come in 2017 oh i love that you know the date yes i love that you know the date yeah it was early so i've been there that means i've been only for a year i've been hosting right i've been there two years but a year hosting and i remember exactly what you're saying i was what i always loved on the daily show was that I had a platform and an opportunity.

And I always saw it as as like a not an obligation but like a like an opportunity i was like oh this is cool we got to talk about these ideas and christiana was always the person like filling in gaps for me she's like oh trevor have you heard of this story and i think there's a way we could look at this and and to give credit to the building there were many people who did that it was like a brain trust that like sort of you know and i was the sponge and the filter who goes i don't know if we that works i don't know if this works etc but to your point it's like we would let's say we would talk about a shooting that takes place and then we talk about another shooting but then very quickly people would be like oh hey there's more shootings and there's more shootings and you got to talk about and then it's it's it's weird because on the one hand you want to be the person who gives voice to a topic but on the other hand you don't want it to be your thing that's right because in a strange way you can either lose yourself or you can make people feel like it's you trying to make it your right thing right right right and you cheapen maybe the thing that you're trying to actually bring attention to yeah yeah you know um so you know i've and i've been actually thinking about and just in a conversation with someone about this um earlier today about like what i can do structurally that is not visible that is not you know public you know to to advance that the book, by the way. Oh, thank you.
What I was moved by. It would be great if you said you hated it.
Well, what a joy. I've been through that.
I didn't think maybe this is my politic. It wasn't that radical.
I was like, this is not that extreme. I was like, this is perfectly reasonable.
That's how I read it. But the thing I was most profoundly moved by was your reflections on childhood um because i'm raising children now and i often think about how my son is experiencing his childhood how my daughter is experiencing her childhood and when you spoke about being a restless child and the confines of the classroom yes and you know reading kind of being this retreat from you being passed down by your parents and it was like you spoke about the portrait of your father made that you're carrying with you and I was like to me it was like a reflection on beautiful parenting in a way but also a child that probably wasn't that happy a lot of the time and I was just to me it was remarkable that this child that was so restless that would cry about a story about the act.
You really read the book? No, I read the book. You actually read the book.
The driver of Agy is the same child that ends up in Dakar and is being like, oh, they see me as mixed. And is now in South Carolina dealing with this teacher.
To me, it was just like, you know, you call your books your children, but it was so much about you. It was very personal and very introspective.

And I feel a lot of that is being missed in place of the final chapter

and what you experienced in Israel and Palestine.

You know what's funny? I knew that was going to happen too.

And I was okay with that.

One of the cool things about books is they sit there.

And so people will come back and they'll see that over time. in terms of just getting to the the more personal aspects of stuff um i always tell my my writing students like um your readers could be doing anything else you know they could be watching tv they could be on their smartphone you playing video you really have to justify the time like you really and so like i am always like trying to sacrifice And bleed on the page I really need you to feel like My work is worth your time And so I'm trying to give Everything I can When I'm writing Let me ask you a question about 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 Wow 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 I'm totally off Oh you're off? I'm completely off People are not happy about that.
I mean, I'm obviously hearing this from other people. 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 the opening self of that conversation.
Right. And I'll never forget the question that you get asked, where I think it's Tony who says to you.
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.
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 is, 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. Right.
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. And 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? I, um...
I've been trying to process

why I wasn't so insulted.

I think it's a couple 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, and I know I keep saying this, how much, the extent to now. And I guess, again,

and I 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 knew this was coming.

Okay.

Yeah.

Even the, like, you know, right to exist.

Like, I knew, like, the state's rights to exist.

Like, 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 a thousand times by then and i figured at some point it was going to be a fight you know i didn't know it was going to be right then but i figured at some point it was going to be a fight i want to 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 gail King is a great journalist and a great interviewer.
And Gail 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 want to ask you about this. I want to ask you about that.
It was like- Gail was considered. Oh my God.
If there's one thing Gail King is, it's considered. But she didn't speak.
It was her hand was her handwritten notes her handwritten notes with it you know what i mean 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 take commandeering that interview i don't think he did nate and gail a service and i'm really really sorry for them i more than 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. 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 cry for me. I'm sure, you know, 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. Yeah, it is.
There is no way in the world you can imagine a journalist who took the other side of that coming on here and somebody saying, if we took away the cover, if we took away the awards, I feel like I would find this in the backpack of a settler colonialist. You can't even imagine that.
Yeah, that framing just wouldn't come up. It doesn't exist.
It's like 10 steps that need to happen before that. 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.
No, no, no. This is why we're here.
This is a long time. There's no 20 seconds here, by the way.
Right, right, right. That's the whole point of a podcast.
We don't have 20 seconds. 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'm really trying to maintain, both personally and in my public presentation presentation is obviously my great horror at maybe not obviously but my great horror at october 7th right the fact that i don't say that perfunctorily but i say it because at the core of my politics is human life yeah 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 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. And I know you've seen some stuff and you, and you, and you, and you, Gaza, and this is obviously before October, they said Gaza is worse.
Wow. 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 couldn't.
And so I, 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 at 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 been 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? And I've 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 is too far.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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.

where 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, inside 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 permit, 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.
I don't know that I am. You know, I don't know that I am.
You know, and I just wish we had room to work through that. You know what I mean? And to think about that 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.
I always tell them, you would have. Yeah.
You would have because it's a system. Yeah.
And most human beings, you know, we exist within the system. Yeah, we exist within the system.
Yeah, we do. Within context.
And without that, you know what I mean? This idea that there can be some triumphant, heroic individual who's going to go above and beyond. That just, that's not a real thing.
That's not history. We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.
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I think about, you know, sometimes the best way for me to process a story that's happening now is to take a story that isn't happening now because I have a little room, I have a little context. But I remember having a conversation with President Obama when he was still in office, you know, and we were talking about this, like it was in an interview.
And we're chatting and I've asked, you know, state officials the same question. is I say, I'm always intrigued by the notion of like a strike, as they call it, and the collateral damage.
And I always go, do you ever wonder what collateral damage causes? And I'm not saying to justify, but do you ever wonder what it causes? So one of the stories that always stuck out to me was there was a strike that was conducted and they were getting, I think it was one of the heads of ISIS. He was in the back of a taxi.
And if you remember, it was like, and they shot down a missile, got the taxi, he was dead. And they were all happy about it.
And I remember we're at the Daily Show talking about this. And I said, wait, where did they get? They said, yeah, we got him clean strike, gone.
I said, what about the taxi driver? And they were like, oh yeah, well, the taxi's gone. I said, well, what about the taxi driver? And they're like, oh, but this is an ISIS terrorist.
I said, okay, maybe it's because I come from a quote unquote third world country. Being a taxi driver, even in America, by the way, even in a first world is like, those people are responsible for so many lives.
Being a taxi driver is not a passion job. It's not a career that you aspire to.
It's like, this is what I'm doing to make ends meet. And I go, when you've taken out a taxi driver, how many lives have you taken out around him? And I know you're celebrating that you've killed this person, but who might you have radicalized? Who might you have, you know, and it's, it's, it's, I, that's, that's, I think one of the reasons I love your writing so much is because it challenges us to continuously approach the most difficult topics with the nuance that anger and violence oftentimes don't get, you know.
And to go back, funny enough, to that first question you were asked on CBS, I hadn't read the book, right, when that happened. But I was now ready for this chapter.
I was like, man, I read through the book and I'm like, okay, and I'm reading about you loving American football in the beginning. I'm like, oh, this is sweet.
But in the back of my mind now, it's like, you know, when you've watched a movie trailer and they've only shown you one part and you're like, I mean, I know it starts out right, but when does the explosion come? And I'm reading these sweet stories and I'm picturing you crying because of a football player who's like lost, it's paraplegic and you're crying and you're having this journey and I'm reading about you in Baltimore and your father and you learning about reading and loving and writing and talking to your students but in the back of my head I'm going get ready Trevor right there's a chapter in this book that is going to make you think about Ta-Nehisi differently I'm like what is this extremist thing and what nobody mentions interview, you spend the first, I want to say like 10-ish pages speaking about the Jewish history. You spend the first 10 pages talking about the Holocaust.
You spend the first pages talking about going through the memorial. You talk about the names, the book of names that shows you all the millions of people who died in the holocaust you talk about the most painful stories you know those those soldiers killing 2 000 jewish people not because the war was still happening but because they just didn't want them to be free and they knew the russians were approaching and they were going to free them and i didn't know some of these like individual moments and i was like damn this is hard damn this is painful but all i kept thinking was like wait wait this is not in the backpack of an extreme this is like it's probably not no but that's what i mean is like you know and maybe maybe this is you know it's a long way of me getting to the question and that is like why would you start telling the story of the palestinian people that chapter why would you start that story with the history of the jewish people it's actually not about the palestinian people um and i you know i have to be pretty open about that um it takes a particular perspective definitely but um if you notice there's like symmetry although it's not deliberately called out between that senegal chapter and the Israelrael chapter yeah i felt that yeah and it's because in dakar i'm confronting stories imagined ideas that play a role in the politics and then having to deal with africa as an actual place yeah you know what i mean with people yeah people who don't celebrate kwanzaa you know and and and you know frankly i still haven't quite figured it all out yet but but the mess of that and then you know like working through that right you know um man it is something to have an african name that nobody in africa has that's what i have wow i wow.
I have an African name that nobody in Africa has, right? And so you're kind of like working through that. And I actually think that's okay.
You know, I actually think that's fine. But like trying to work through that.
And then here I am in this place where some of the, I would say, nationalist impulse that I grew up around and grew up under has been taken to like the nth degree. Like it's actually been operationalized.
You know, it's not, you know, just people without power trying to, you know, create stories and trying to preserve themselves and trying to armor themselves against an oppression. It has become an actual state.
And I knew I was going to write about that. But you see, this doesn't work if you can't see yourself in Israel and in Zionism.
If you think it is just evil people over here doing an evil thing, then you've missed it. You know what I mean? You've missed it.
This started somewhere. You know what I mean? It started somewhere.
And I have to be honest, and I said this in the piece, once I started reading the documents around Zionism, it was like, on one level, I was like, oh, this is so clearly colonialism. Like, I recognize a colonialist discourse.
Well, first of all, they use the word colonize, but also, you know, depicting people over there in a certain way, either as they don't exist or they're savage one or the other. But the other part was I recognized the yearning.
Like, I recognized Moses has talking about being a member of a degraded people. At one place he says, you know, your nose and your hair won't be made to disappear.
You can't pretend you're German. He's saying this before the Holocaust.
You know what I mean? You can't hide your Jewishness. You should be proud of it.
And all I can hear is like Malcolm X, right? So I'm like recognizing it. Like I can feel- The parallels.
The parallels, yeah. And the fraternity for it and the sympathy.
Like I understand it. But then you see where it goes, right? You see where it goes and how a people who have been just repeatedly degraded over centuries, massacred, killed, chased, ethnically cleansed themselves out of Spain, you know, can go somewhere and perpetrate and create a system of just dire inhumanity.
Dire inhumanity. I say this having seen it, you know, against other people.
That was a challenge for me as a black person, actually. You know what I mean? Like, as much as I was, like, concerned about Zionism and what it did, because I started thinking, and this is imaginative and speculative, but this is, I think, what writers are supposed to do.
What would we be if we had power?

Like, what would we do?

You know, and then there's this discourse around Liberia

where African-Americans had this whole thing about,

oh, we're going to go back to Africa

and we're going to civilize our brethren, right?

Yeah.

We're going to Christianize and civilize them.

And you see, my God, like, we could be seduced into the same thing.

Yeah.

You know, and that's why i'm very um strong on this point this is not a jewish era it's not a zionist era you know i mean this is a human a deeply deeply human temptation that is wrong but human human nonetheless i find in the book what i found was interesting i feel you implicate yourself you talk about i see american imperialism i see uh you know evangelical christianity and as an bearer of an american passport who can go through certain checkpoints that other part i am in meshed with that whether i like it or not yeah so you're like calling yourself out as an American in a way that I don't think people are necessarily acknowledging.

You're not saying, oh, this is the big bad Israel.

You're saying this is us.

It's actually us.

And that's the key difference.

Because people will tell you, they say, well, what about, you know, Sudan?

What about China?

What about, you know, they'll name all the places

where horrible things are happening.

What about Saudi Arabia?

And they're not wrong.

You know, they're not wrong.

But this is our horrible thing.

That is the key.

That is actually the key difference.

You know, every single fighter plane that drops a bomb on Gaza came from America.

Every single one.

Every single one.

You know, I got that from, there's a report by this guy, Josh Paul, and this great Palestinian-American law professor, Noura Etiquette, that they wrote together. Josh Paul used to be in the State Department, and he worked in the area that oversaw the sale of weapons to other countries until he was just like, I can't do this anymore.
And he sent me, you know, a couple of weeks ago, like the report that he and Noura had done, just outlining the human rights violations that had come over the past year or so. And I saw that line about it.
And this was after. And I was like, my God, this is really all us.
You know what I mean? You just get more and more evidence. And I'll tell you, even more so because we walk around the world, we go around the world, maybe not walk, we go around the world saying we are the front of democracy.
We advanced ourselves through the fight against enslavement. We advanced ourselves through the fight against segregation.
We advanced ourselves, you know what I mean? Martin Luther King is our patron saint. But we are supporting segregation right now.
That's the one thing about that CBS interview, right? Like when I say segregation apartheid, not once did somebody say, no, that's not true. Yeah, he kept on saying, and why is that? Right, right, right.
Not, that's not true. Yeah, no.
He said, and why is that happening? Why is that? Which every single perpetrator of segregation in Jim Crow says, I'm sorry he said it about apartheid. Yeah, no, they said all sorts of good reasons to do it.
Well, for me, that's the parallel. It's like, you know, I've had this conversation,

sometimes argument with some of my friends, you know,

some Israeli born, some just of Jewish descent.

And we'll talk about this.

And, you know, one thing I wish people knew more of

is how broad the spectrum is.

For instance, just to what you said now,

we had on, you know, one of the other podcast episodes,

we had the author of Sapiens and Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari onari on yes and he's like he said i'm a zionist and said but this is what my definition of zionism is it is me believing that jewish people have a right to exist in a state where they do not have to run away because of their nose and their hair and i'm paraphrasing that part but essentially that's what he said and then he went on to say israel's committing crimes in Gaza. And he said, the West Bank is even more indefensible

because there's not even a boogeyman Hamas to blame it on.

And he said that students should be protesting against the US

because in your words, funny enough, he said,

it is America's participation in that specific thing.

And when I think about apartheid, like I'll talk to my friends.

And I'll be honest, I think this is what it is know and i think we're all guilty of it at different times none of us wishes to be labeled something that we can never get out from under right nobody wants to be called a racist because this is now a stain that they wear forever and there's no coming out from under it You know? And so that's why people are so, in my opinion, people are so afraid of saying, oh, yeah, that was racist. What I said was racist.
What I did was. Because they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I know where this goes. No, I know.
And I've noticed the same thing during apartheid. The architects of apartheid were like, no, no, no.
This is not. No, no, no.
I'm not racist. they're like no we we do this for the for the bantu and they said that you must understand the black cannot govern themselves the black does not have the capability to understand governance and we are protecting them and we must keep and and then when i'll talk to my friends in and around israel palestine i'll say to them they go like oh oh, how can you call it? How can anyone call it apartheid? And I'll say, okay, let's do it this way.
You tell me what's different. I'm just going to tell you what apartheid was.
I'm just going to tell you what it was. And I would like you to tell me where you see a discrepancy.
And I go, okay, so in apartheid, your ethnicity determined what your life could be, where you could go, what job you could get, how long you could stay in the major part of the town where the power was held, where you could move or not move. That's what apartheid did.
Then they're like, okay, it's like that. But, and I'm like, no, don't give me reasons.
Let's forget reasons for a moment. Let's just talk about what it was and what it wasn't.
And I go, apartheid also said that you couldn't vote depending on your ethnicity or yes, but, and I go, you're my friend. I'm not indicting you.
I just want you to tell me how it's different to apartheid. And oftentimes it's ended at, yes, there's many similarities, but it's because.
It's because. And I go, I have yet to find a thing that happened in our past that didn't have a because.
It's always like that. And what I don't think folks realize is that's actually a further indictment that's actually because you sound like the thing you think you're not right and you don't know the history of the thing you think you're not well enough to realize how much you actually sound like it yeah you know um and so when you say for instance you know the palestinians have done this, that, you know, suicide bombings, you know, terrorist attacks, etc.
That's real. That's real.
And nobody would like deny the pain of that. You know, the problem is the violence of the oppressed is that's always the reason.
That's always the reason, you know. And so, you know, I was on a podcast with somebody else and we were discussing this and it's like, I just gave you that Nat Turner example.
Right. And I say, well, I think killing babies in the crib is wrong.
Like, I don't think I could do that. Right.
But that doesn't justify slavery. Yeah.
Yeah. You see what I'm saying? That doesn't make, that doesn't mean they, you know what I mean? Because you know what I mean? That therefore justifies.
No, no, no, no, no, no. And I think this is like a principle thing that cannot be gotten past.
Either you think there are good reasons for segregation, apartheid, jump quote, or you don't. You know what I mean? And in my mind, there is never any reason.
You know, like my dream of liberation is not like enslaving white people. That would be wrong.
I oppose enslavement. You know, I use the death penalty example all the time.
I am opposed to the death penalty. There is no because for me, for the death penalty.
There is no, you know, he's a serial killer, killed 30 people. No, I'm against it.
I'm against it for Dylann Roof. Like, I'm against it.
There's no because for me. You know, and I think we all have those things.
It's just the fact, the bare truth of it is some of us do not have those things for apartheid. That's just the truth.
Some people think, and that is scary for me as a black person, because now I know who I'm talking to, because you would do that to me if there was a because. You know, we can't imagine ourselves that way.

Or we can't imagine ourselves doing the worst.

It's interesting that we understand it fundamentally as humans.

But then when it comes to practicing it, our fear takes over.

Do you know what I mean?

Yes.

Like I remember getting into a passionate argument with a friend of mine around Israel, Palestine.

And he was like, but Trevor, what do you want us to do?

And you know that Hamas is trying to kill us. And we think these other countries around us want to kill us.
Like, what do you want us to do? And I was like, well, I want you to not kill babies. I want you to not kill children.
And he was like, no, but we don't want to. And you got to understand where Israel is coming.
And I was like, yeah, no, no, I'm not saying that. And then I said to him something that I truly believe, but I don't know, again, because I haven't been fully tested.
i don't know that i would be able to exercise it and maybe even we oh i said you know what it is it's the burden of the good guy when you watch a movie you watch a james bond movie all right for all these flaws you watch james bond james bond is pursuing one of the. They've got like a vial that's going to kill the whole world,

some virus.

The bad guy gets to drive through a crowded market,

crashing everyone who's in it and not give a damn.

James Bond has to stop, has to go around people.

If a woman is thrown, he has to catch her.

If a child falls, he has to stop.

Superman, oh man, I want to go after Zod,

but the building is falling. So I have to stop the building from falling because while i'm trying to beat zod the building is full of people and my mission is to save people and so i cannot let the people die in my fight with zod yeah just because i'm trying to get zod and i do you know what i mean i keep going i'm like man we understand it on like a on a on a hypothetical moral level when we watch it.

But when we're tested, very few of us pass that test to get beyond our fear. The other thing is like the building is filled with people who are not you.
You know what I mean? So then it's like, you know, how can you have empathy beyond yourself? Which I just think, I don't know, like one of the things that i was i thought a lot

about there was um the israelis i spoke to they spoke in terms of survival right which is actually and that's why i started with the adversary which is i mean when you have faced you know real existential violence you know you might would start to think of things in those sorts of terms but But equally interesting was, like, the story they told about that survival. Not all of them, but one of the more popular versions of it, which holds that they went like lambs to the slaughter, like that there was no real resistance.
And so it's a kind of, like, not just, I won't let genocide happen again, but the next time I'm going to go out fighting I don't think that story is particularly accurate I don't think that version of it doesn't correspond with how oppressed people act under systems ever any human being ever but I think also beyond that what is life for? what is living for? You know, like what is living for? What is, like you're trying to survive for what? You know, and if, and like you say, you haven't been tested. So I don't like, I agree.
I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I don't know if my life depends on daily killing babies. I mean, I might jump off a building myself.
Right. Because I don't know what my life is then.
Like, I don't know that I have a life worth living myself. Like, when I think about that, when I try to do that thought experiment, like, I feel like I've, like, somehow lost, like, is it just oxygen? No, but in the book, I think you answer it when you talk about the parallels between the dehumanization of black people and the dehumanizations of Arab and brown people, when you no longer see the humanity in these people, I think you can do anything, right? Right.
But what about like your own humanity? Yeah. Well, you're losing your own humanity by the act, which is, I think, the sadness in all of it.
I would challenge that, funny enough. I actually think it's the first part and it's what you said.
I don't think many of the people are forced to, they're not challenging, we are not challenging our humanity because we've made it numbers, because we've made it statistics. And you talk about this in the book.
Go read, if you go read the articles, and I think I'm really happy that Gen Z has been on this as they have on TikTok, on Twitter, on all of it. You now see with a real clear lens how the media tells the stories about what's happening in the Middle East.
They will say, you know, a family killed in Tel Aviv, you know, they'll make it human. And on the other side, they'll go 60 Palestinians.
But Palestinians is not a thing. They're not humans.
Do you know what I mean? A Palestinian is not a, like when you think of it, if you take that word, you should remove it and just write humans, children, humans, children. I don't think anyone, to borrow your words from the book, would be able to grapple with that constant toll and pain.
Because we'd be like, whoa, how many humans and how many children and how many people? And I think that's actually what it is, is throughout history,

even if we zoom out from the conflict in the Middle East,

what we've been very good at doing as a species, you know,

through a few people who have assumed power,

is they've managed to dehumanize the people that it's happening to

so that we don't have to question our humanity.

So when the U.S. drones a part of the Middle East where it's a wedding,

no, no, it's collateral damage, insurgents. we got the

but collateral damage

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That's B-R-O-O-K-l-i-n-e-n.com and use the code trevor for 15 off your online order of a hundred dollars or more that's brooklinen.com use promo code trevor for 15 off it's interesting because when you go to south car, you go to this kind of school board meeting and where people are defending this teacher called Mary, they're trying to ban your book, basically. And it's interesting to me that you will say, how can they do that to me as a black person or as a really prolific black author? There is this movement to ensure that children don't read your book because they don't want the widening of their imagination, their aperture.
So how did it feel actually living through that? Because it felt that like you were more burdened by what you saw in Israel and Palestine, but you were more personally impacted by what was actually happening in South Carolina, kind of like in your backyard. Yeah, I mean, that's a great point.
Why was I not more burdened by South Carolina? It probably is the fact that this is less of a threat to me than it is to the students and the parents. And it's like, I didn't really feel like between the world and me, it's going to be fine.
You know, so I probably felt it less personally. Maybe some of it also was the fact that it was, like I got to tell you, this was a little weird, right? Because it was really white self-interest that I was observing.
And I mean that actually in the best way, right? Because look, like all people, you know what I mean? These white parents down here, they want their kids to have a first-class education. They want them to be able to go out in the world.
They don't want people mocking them and laughing at them. And, you know, and to them, it's like book banning.
Like, I'm going to have to send my kid out into the world. And like, I come from a district where they ban books.
Like they, you know, obviously have enough sense to realize that is not how you raise a worldly kid with you know expectations like these were kids in an ap english class right so they're trying to get credit to get ahead in the university you know and it's like this is like barbaric you know what i mean what we're talking about here so when i say self-interestinterest, I mean, they might not even have my politics,

but they recognize

that part of a first-rate education

is reading different things,

taking things from different,

like, it was kind of

that recognition of that value.

It's not,

we completely and totally agree

with Ta-Nehisi Coates.

You know what I mean?

It's just,

we want our kids to have,

you know,

a relatively high-level education.

You know?

And, you know,

as I say in the book,

I mean, you can mock that,

you can laugh at that,

but there are not too many

Thank you. have a relatively high level education.
And as I say in the book, I mean, you can mock that, you can laugh at that, but there are not too many freedom struggles that have been advanced without some group of people from the majority seeing their interests there too. So I was fine with it.
I want to say something really quickly, and I have to remind myself to say this all the time as I talk about this. I was talking before about my sympathy like how i was reading the documents and everything and i felt you know like the similarity in reference to that i get how hard it might be if you are jewish and you're trying to reckon with this stuff you know what i mean that was the other reason why it was kind of written the way it was.
Because, man, you know, and I have some exposure to this in other ways, but I won't make this about me. I can imagine it is great.
It is really, really difficult to be within a system. I saw it with my own eyes, actually.
Within a system that tells you you're noble, that tells you what you're doing is correct, that tells you you are within the tradition of people who have been correct, within a movement that is correct, and somebody is telling you, no, you're actually sticking your foot on people's throat. That's hard to take.
It doesn't mean it shouldn't be said, by the way. It should be said.
No, no, no. I hear you.
Yeah, but to deconstruct the core of your identity in that way. Because when you do it's left well there are two stories well one less one lesser story but i don't know if you remember when um world central kitchen jose andres you know what they i mean he does an amazing job he's all over the world and he just feeds people and it seems like such a simple mission but what he does with his organization is there's a devastation anywhere in the world from natural disaster from war you name it he gets in there and he gets in there faster than most like giant organizations and he just feeds people from Haiti to Florida from Gaza to Syria he gets in there and he feeds people and one of the more tragic stories that came out of the Israel-Palestine conflict was, I think it was seven of the world's central kitchen people being killed in a strike.
And you know, there's been all these reports and then like the Israel government said, oh, it was like rogue, sort of like some soldiers in the ranks who weren't supposed to be doing something. They went against orders and it's muddled.
So I won't, you know, put my foot anywhere in particular because I keep reading new things about it. But what was most interesting for me was seeing that he got interviewed afterwards.
He got Haaretz in Israel. They did like an almost full page spread on him, like an interview.
And then he was on, I think it's Channel 12 in Israel. And I saw multiple people online when that was happening saying, and it seemed completely earnest to me they said this is the first time i have seen a story saying anything about what's happening in gaza from inside israel yeah and i saw multiple people saying that yeah multiple people saying i i wasn't hearing this i wasn't seeing this i wasn't and and in a way i think you know i think of what you talk about in your book you know when you when you talk about the importance of being a storyteller the responsibility that writers bear the obligation that you have when you're putting words on a page because i think about how powerful it is to be able to craft a story or a narrative for people you know one of the key things i hear from many white south africans some could be lying but i think genuinely when i talk to them many of them aren't they'll tell me straight up they go trevor i didn't know i think that's probably and i'm like what do you mean you didn't know and they go like trevor they go nobody knew what was happening and i'm like how could you not know what was happening in apartheid and they say remember we had the national broadcaster yeah they broadcast what we we watch we weren't getting international stuff it was banned you weren't getting music from america that was anything like sugar man and all these songs that question no we weren't getting anything so our reality was shaped by the government and if your reality is shaped you almost have to be like neo to escape yeah you really got to do something.
Because I always think about that. You really have to do something.
On that level, I go, forget who's a good person, who's a bad person. Think about what kind of person you have to be to say, everything in my reality makes sense, but I'm going to question it.
Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And I think about how many Israelis don't get the story on all sides.
I think about how many South Africans didn't get the story of apartheid they were just told yeah they were even told that black people loved living there by the way they were like no this is great they're loving it they love how they live and and then they would show look at the violence or the ANC is trying to disrupt this thing they're trying to blow everything up we've created a working system everyone is happy and maybe you know it's a question I have to you then as as as a writer is like how do you how do you escape that how do you even begin the journey of puncturing your reality do you know what i mean you know i think it's important everyone who listens to this understands that the book as a whole it's not if you think it's israel palestine it's not that's the most most contentious issue right now. But the part of the book where you're going into Senegal, for me, is like you having to puncture a reality.
You having to now see Africans as human beings who don't just exist as numbers. It's not just the beginning of a slave trade.
Oh, it's people. It actually started back when I was in college.
Because when I went went to howard i was in a history department where they were very scholarly and it was like all of this stuff about like they they came and kidnapped us and we were kings they had no tolerance for any of that and it was extremely disruptive of my concept of what africa was and what it meant for me and i finally you know went over myself and um i think you know it. So I think by then I had let go of a lot of stuff.
Right. And I say I'm still in process because even as I was walking down the street, I really do think I was the film was still over my eyes.
And I'll give you an example. I would just like repeatedly remark on the beauty of the Senegalese people.
Right. They're very beautiful.
We have to say that. OK.
but I have a question about that. Yeah.
I have a question about that. Yeah, go, let's do it.
Is it that? No, they are. They are.
But is it that, or is it also the fact, and I'm speaking as an African-American maybe here, that you grow up under all of this stuff, telling you you're ugly, you're unattractive, your nose is too big, your lips are too big, your hair is like all that. And then you go and you're like...
These are stunning people. These are stunning people.
And you see them and they're the coolest people in the world too. Like they're smooth and you know what I mean? They're style.
They're style. And it's like, what? You know what I mean? And so, but I am trying to, I guess, comprehend how much of that is me looking at them through this.
You know what I mean? trying to escape like what I've been told here and how much of that is the reality of it you mentioned the ideology niggerology yes I couldn't couldn't get over that even exist I know it existed in an abstract right this real way of thinking yes and you were like have I been somehow tainted by that yeah I'm surprised by the humanity worst part. Of other African, just the way they live.
And then. No, it was, that was.
So I think like, yes, you know what I mean? I obviously did bring it with me. Like, that's just the truth of it.
And the fact that the matter is all of the work I had done to escape it. You know what I mean? I don't know if you ever get out of it.
The second thing was like I read all of the scholarship about how to do a no return is bullshit it's not real not that many people went through gore you know ain't this and gore ain't that and I'm gonna tell you when that boat pulled off I lost it yeah even knowing even knowing yes even knowing this is BS like like empirically this is not what they said it was. You know what I mean? And so what does it mean that even after, you know, you deconstruct all of this stuff that is myth and is not real, like some of this stuff still has a hold on you.
I mean, there'd be evenings when I would sit with two of the people I talk about in the book. I'm going to do it.

And Hanada, and it's like, we have this whole conversation about who's mixed and who's not

and all of that sort of thing, right? But see, the fact of the matter is

while some people might find that conversation hurtful,

we had to have some kinship to even joke like that.

You don't just say that to people. You know what I mean? You got to have, there has to be something there.

You're still kin. Right, right.
You have to.

You have to.

It's like cousins ribbing each other.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly.

It's like cousins ribbing each other.

But why are we cousins again?

Yeah.

Damn.

You know what I mean?

But why?

I mean, we are.

I feel you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel you.

You know what I mean?

But what?

When you mentioned how, like,

kind of grieved you were

by them saying,

you know, the women out here, they bleach and they change their hair because they want to look like African-Americans. It seemed like that really sat with you.
You were like, OK, now what has happened here? That it was so meta that you couldn't really process it. Because this is at the same time as I'm doing, you're so beautiful.
Like, I'm doing that. Like, why would you want to look like us? Like, why would you? And then, you know, the other thing is, and I don't know if this is where you're going.
I might have cut you off. No, no, go for it.
But we look the way we look because rape is an indelible part of the experience of enslavement. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like, it's not a gift. Yeah, systemic sexual assault.
Right, right. That's why, you know, it is the way it is.
And so, and it's actually a marker, you know, in that way of our division. You know what I mean? In the way that we were kind of very much like, as Nicole Hannah-Jones says, you know, like born on the water.
Like that was like, you know, what we were there was stripped away, taken. And then something out of what was left of that and, you know, what we got here forcibly, you know, became who we are.
Yeah. You know? And I mean, that's probably even tied to the why are we cousins thing.
You know what I mean? Because it's like, what are we? Like, what are we? It did feel like in Dakar that you experienced some sort of psychic shift. And I don't want to make it tropey because that's the whole thing of the African-American, either abroad in France, writing a book.
Right, which I've done. Yeah, which you've done.
Which I've done. I wrote some of this book in France.
In the James Baldwin tradition. Right, right, right.
Or it's like going to someplace in West Africa and feeling something. And you do mention the ancestors a lot, which means we're cousins, because, you know, we mention the ancestors too.
But you're like, you know, part of, I'm paraphrasing, but part of your writing and the tradition you're in is like veneration of the ancestors. They're speaking to you and through you.
Yes, yes. But it felt like with the Israel-Palestine thing, it felt that you had come to a personal conclusion based on your morality, on your feeling about the human experience.
But you come out of Senegal, kind of still grappling. Yeah, no doubt.
And I wonder wonder, why is that? Did it not feel like home enough? Or did it feel like home? Like, what was that confusion? And there was an underlying tension there that I didn't feel anywhere else in the book. I think it's the what are we.
I think I never figured out the what are we. I know what the feeling is, but I can't.
I couldn't. What are we to each other? Yes, what are we to each other? I feel like we're kids.
Yeah, and I felt that. But I couldn't put it into words.
Like I couldn't, I never figured out. Well, are we to each other or just? Yes, what are we to each other? I feel like we're kids.
Yeah, and I felt like, I felt that. But I couldn't put it into words.
Like, I couldn't quite name it, you know? And I guess that's understandable. That was my first trip there.
Again, a lot of that was about, you know, grieving and being, you know, African American. And, like, I think about, like, I spent so much time by the water.
And I think about watching, I talk about this in the book, like these little black boys surf. I don't think I've ever in my life seen black boys surf.
Damn. Until I went to synagogue.
And they were doing it like it was the most natural thing in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because it is. Because it is.
Because it is. You know what I mean? And it really struck me in this really, really kind of, you know, beautiful way.
And I think it probably will take a few more trips until I'm like not amazed by that.

You know what I mean?

And then I can, you know, figure out like what that can is and what it means and everything.

It's funny.

I think of just the differing experiences.

You know, what you're sharing now reminds me of when Ryan Coogler, the director of Black Panther and Fruitvale, amazing, amazing director. He was going to South Africa to do research for Black Panther, right? Oh, he directed you.
I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good friend of mine.
That's why I saw him seeing you. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Ryan reaches out to me, says, hey, I'm going to South Africa. Can you help me? I was like, yeah, I'd love to.
So I said, Ryan, let me hook you up with my people people. not tour guides yeah not like no i want to i just want you to be with people that's what he said he said he was in it yeah and so ryan goes to south africa and i'll never forget one of my best friends was with him and they're walking around in soweto and ryan's walking around and he has like a my friend described it to me he's like he's like hey trevor he's like i'm in this guy he hey man he's edgy man he's edgy he's edgy he's like this guy's edgy and i'm like what do you mean he's like ah man i don't he's every time we turn a corner it's like he expects something to happen yes he's edgy man he's edgy and i was like what do you mean and and then and then they tell me the most beautiful story and ryan ryan told it to me and sort of my friend from a different perspective but he says they're walking around they walk around they walk and i don't know if this was day one or day two but ryan stops and his shoulders relax and he starts to cry a little bit and my friend's like yo is everything okay and ryan goes i've never felt this feeling before i have never seen blackness expressed in its full right like range like you know it's like where black isn't defined by something or not something like no one looking at you because you are black right it might be because of your sneakers or your t-shirt but not because and you're not out you're not in you're not you're not you know it was a weird it's a feeling that i can't imagine because i don't i can't imagine because i was lucky enough to grow up in South Africa In a Tosa family In Soweto I'm like okay But when he described it as the most poetic thing What a gift it is To be able to see yourself As everything And anything And I think that's When I'm listening to you and even when you read it in the book, I feel you moving through.
It's almost... I want to question that a little bit though.
Yeah, yeah. And the reason why I want to question that is that's what I thought and maybe it's still true.
But when that sister told me about the bleaching and everything. Yeah.
So what is like, where is that? This is my theory. This is my theory.
Oftentimes, we look to those who we think have like figured it out and have found, like we look to those who inspire us is the easiest way to put it. Right.
I know this personally growing up in South Africa. Many of us looked at African-Americans and we were like, yo, that is it.
I mean, I look at the struggle in South Africa. The Nelson Mandela's, the Winnie Mandela's, the, you know, the Oliver Tambo's but why would you do that if you have the range of humanity no no no because what you're seeing is a glimpse what you're seeing is a moment does this make sense I could be wrong because I'm not a scholar in this but I do think in some ways it's because while there is still a struggle it it's not the same struggle.

And so it sort of feels freeing in a different way.

And it makes me aspire to you in another way.

So I remember the first few weeks we were in New York.

Me, Joe Opio from Uganda,

David, a friend of ours also from Uganda,

but South African.

We're walking through the streets of New York.

We're coming back from a soccer match.

Cops pull us over.

Mind you, I was the host of the Daily Show at this point.

They pulled us over.

It was like on 11th Avenue and maybe just into the teens now.

Cop pulls us over.

We're carrying our sports equipment.

We're dressed in our sports gear.

Cop goes, hey, where are you guys coming from?

And we're like, oh, we're coming from a soccer game.

And he's like, where are you going?

We're like, oh, we're going home.

We live uptown.

He's like, you walking?

We're like, yeah, we're walking.

He's like, it's midnight. We're like, yeah, I mean, the game ends at midnight.
He's like, you guys are playing soccer now? We're like, are we going home? We live uptown. He's like, you walking? We're like, yeah, we're walking.
He's like, it's midnight.

We're like, yeah, I mean, the game ends at midnight.

He's like, you guys are playing soccer now?

We're like, yeah.

He's like, do you mind if I search your bags?

I'm like, no, go ahead.

And he searches.

And we're standing there, you know, like against the car.

And he's searching.

And I can't explain this to you.

We could not have been more relaxed.

Wow.

And this all happened.

And then we were done.

And we're like, all right, have a good night,

officer.

And then we carried on

and you know,

Joe,

and we carry,

and now we carry on

talking about the game.

Joe was like,

no, Trevor,

you have to pass the ball

in the middle.

No, Trevor,

the thing is,

and then I paused us,

I think like two blocks up,

I paused us and I said,

guys, guys, guys,

do you realize what just happened there?

Yeah.

And they were like,

oh yeah,

we got stopped.

And I was like,

no,

but because we haven't lived

in this experience for that long,

that to us, we treated and felt differently about because to us that wasn't our like police weren't our struggle in that way right so we were just like oh yeah sometimes the cops need to search you and we just keep it moving yeah that's why i say it's not a scholarly answer but i sometimes feel like it's like you aspire to a thing that's fixed in another world and it seems like an answer in another and yours seems more layered and more complex and more difficult so i have a view on bleaching and i would encourage everyone to read the work of professor yaba blay who's done really great work on like west african communities in the diaspora and in like the black diaspora in bleaching whether it's jamaica nigeria etc etc colonialism did a number on us oh definitely. Like colorism is so rife.
Like I grew up seeing women bleach and it was just a very normal thing. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't until like I grew up and deconstructed and it was just like, I feel like the middle passage, it's very clear the tragedy and the trauma of that.
Right, right, right. Displacement, you know, you were taken to another country, whether it's in the Caribbean or in America.
But the people that are still in Africa who stayed and my family who weren't taken, they don't, you don't necessarily do the unraveling of like, what did colonialism and slavery do to us? And I think it warped our sense of what is beautiful. Separate from African-Americans and the media and stuff like that, like, fairer is seen as better, right? And that is something that still hasn't changed.
Do you know what I mean? I know women my age and young, I know Gen Z girls who bleach, right? Did you guys have, I mean, now I'm'm gonna sell really ignorant but for all of his like political impact in terms of malcolm x one of the things that came out of that was like he like he made a lot of that shameful even though it still happens you know but like that whole like looking at yourself like it there was a stigma then from that point on among black people about like nose jobs changing your eyes doing

certain it's i think that there's a key psychic difference where i'm not going to speak for all yeah of course west africans but there's a perception like this is something i do as an act of social mobility it's got nothing to do with like how i actually feel about myself or my Iboness, my Yorobaness,

or my Lua, whatever tribe you are.

It's something I do because I... do with like how I actually feel about myself or my Ibo-ness, my Yoruba-ness or my Lua,

whatever tribe you are.

It's something I do because I know in this world, especially in the country I'm in, if

you are fairer skinned, you are treated better.

And there's like studies on it.

Like it's not.

Yes, of course.

Trevor, I talk about it all the time.

Like all the faces of Africa, like Trevor, Tyler, like, you know, like, why is it that we the face of africa that the west has bought into is mixed race because they're like we that's what we want to see right and africans intuitively know that when you're like unambiguously black and darker skinned there's a trick you're not going to get perceived as african america which is closer to power and opportunity in your mind. So in your country and status, so you're like, okay, I'm going to lighten my skin.
And it doesn't, it's not, it's a very, again, because race is constructed differently. Your skin is not necessarily the basis of your racial or ethnic identities, nor is it your tribe.
Yeah, fully tribe. Yeah, it.
Fully tribe. Bleaching your skin doesn't impact your tribe.
But I think if you're in an American context... Yeah, that's like distance.
You've moved away. You definitely have moved away from your tribe.
You have a legacy of passing. It's a whole different thing.
Because your tribe is defined by color in the US, and it isn't in Africa. Your tribe is always going to be your tribe.
Your tribe is always your tribe, no matter. There's not enough bleaching cream in the world that's going to stop me being Ibo, right? So I think there is that difference, but there is a sadness there because I think that sometimes there can be an arrogance of like, I'd say as an African race in diaspora, oh, we were never enslaved, but we lost so much.
We lost so much as well. And we often have the arrogance of like, oh, we have our language, we have but we lost so much we lost so much as well and we often have the arrogance like oh we have our language we have but we lost a great deal and I think one of the things we lost was seeing ourselves in the mirror and feeling we are beautiful just the way we are whereas out here you guys had the black power movement and we're like we're going to reclaim the thing that you have said is not beautiful I wonder if like I, I'm still, cause you asked that question about, you know,

that essay being unfinished, but.

Not unfinished.

No, no, but I'm still processing.

I'm processing, yeah, grappling.

I'm with you on it.

Cause I feel emotionally, at least it was like unfinished.

Like it wasn't unresolved.

And I think what I hear you saying,

like when you hear it, when you say loss,

that is something I obviously immediately relate to. And it's like, of course we had a music, you know what I mean? Like, of course we have that, you know? But that's a real thing.
I mean, there's been this musical exchange back and forth, you know what I mean? That is, you know, even happening now. But I guess if I'm honest, what I left wondering about is, is the root of this kinship actually a shared sense of loss? You know what I mean? And if it is, is that actually enough? Is that kinship? You know what I mean? Like, is that okay? And when I was thinking about it and I was writing, I was like, I don't think that's enough.
Because actually, in fact, the way I phrased it was, well, all we have in common is the white man. That was like my mind.
Like, that's how I process it. But you're saying something different.
Yeah. You're saying something different.
You're not saying it's the feeling inside of you, you know, of having, because I'm going to tell you, we do have that. That sense of loss.
I mean, that's why we go back. Yeah.
That's why we go back. I mean, all of these people doing, you know, oh, my family's from here in Scotland,

which is a very American thing.

I'm from here in Ireland.

And we're just like, you know,

at a certain point it just disappears.

We just don't know.

You know what I mean?

It's been erased.

And that feeling is a deep, deep wound.

You know what I mean?

That so many of us are chasing.

So much so that we, you know, we would invent stuff.

It's interesting because you mention a lot the Jewish experience

and the Jewish diaspora.

It feels like to me that they actually have bonding on this feeling of loss

and in ways that many people have contentious feelings about.

But it was like whether you're a Moroccan Jew, an Iraqi Jew, a Polish Jew,

we're going to be under this umbrella.

Yes.

I think loss can be, has great kinetic energy.

When you talk about the tracing, it's funny,

I think of all your work in many ways is tracing, you know,

and every beginning of a chapter and every story that you tell in the book

has a feeling of like, go and see. Yeah.
It really has a go and see. See for yourself.
Your book is getting banned. Go and see.
You went to go and see. Your people come from Africa.
You have this identity and maybe you're connected. But go and see.
Yes. You know what I mean? The people of Gaza are being bombed and the people of Israel are fighting for their survival.
And there's this conflict of ideas. But go and see.
And it made me realize how important a writer is, how important a journalist is, how important a storyteller is. Because oftentimes we can't go and see.
That's right. That's right.
And there are a lot of journalists and writers who won't go and see yeah you know even though you know they they should and this is like again you know the book is written to my students and this is like something i'm really trying to drill in them you you really have to touch the thing like you you got to touch it you know you got to feel it you got to experience it because the way it will occur for you will not be the way it'll occur for somebody else you know what i mean in? In its most specific, I think somebody with a different history, with different things, might have saw everything I saw in those 10 days and they would have written something totally different. You know what I mean? And so I think seeing it for yourself, running it through your own filters is crucial and key.
You know, I know we're going to wrap up soon, but I was thinking... This is my black podcast.
This've been running around talking to people for like three days, and I have not done this. I've needed to do this.
We're fixing the diaspora rules right now. We've got black, Brits, South African, African-American.
That warms my heart. Thank you for saying that.
Thank you for saying that. It's beautiful.
You know what I think about. I'm going to send this to my French people.
I'm telling you. I'm going to send this, like, my black French people.
I love it. I call them the wee wee blacks.
I love them. I love them too much.
Wee wee blacks. When I'm doing comedy out there, I love it out there.
I love them. Because even over there, I tell my wife, I don't want too many African-American friends here.
Like, there's a whole African-American diaspora in Paris. It's like, I just.
You don't want to be around. Well, a few of them is fine, but I don't want too many african-american friends here like there's a whole african-american diaspora in paris yeah i just you don't want to be around well a few of them is fine but i don't want to like i gotta you know see my people yeah you want to break it up no you want to break it up yes exactly you gotta you gotta break it up you gotta break it up no no no not at all this is what it's for um and i i'll end by saying this to you i think if you remove the accolades if you remove your awards if you remove the publishing house if you remove the smartness if you remove everything we know about Ta-Nehisi Coates that book would fit in the backpack of somebody who truly sees other people as human beings first and foremost and man I wish we all thought like you I think we're all guilty of stepping out of it, but thank you, man.

Thank you for taking the time.

Thank you for writing it.

Thank you for going

and seeing where we couldn't,

and yeah, man,

I hope we get to,

maybe we'll do it in Paris next time.

Yeah, I would love it.

I would love it.

Thank you for the discussion.

Yeah, man, thank you so much.

You're great. What Now with Trevor Noah is produced by Spotify Studios in partnership with Day Zero Productions.

The show is executive produced by Trevor Noah, Sanaz Yamin, and Jody Avigan.

Our senior producer is Jess Hackle.

Claire Slaughter is our producer.

Music, mixing, and mastering by Hannes Brown.

Thank you so much for listening.

Join me next Thursday for another episode of What

Now?