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

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Speaker 4 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 got to get to that.

Speaker 4 And then the music filters to us, and the style filters to us, the vibe filters. Do you get what I'm saying? I do.
And because it is novel and because it seems to be completely like, you know,

Speaker 4 devoid of all conflict and

Speaker 4 struggle in a weird way,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 2 They're like, man, I gotta man do it. And I was like, wait, what? I was like, wait,

Speaker 4 my cousins were trying to sound like Tupac.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 And I was like, wait, we're trying to come here and you're trying to come here.

Speaker 4 Tanahasi 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Most people know his work, but very few people know the man behind the words.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 This is What Now

Speaker 4 with Trevor Noah.

Speaker 4 So, yeah, man, Talahasi, welcome, man.

Speaker 2 Thanks for having me. This is what we're going to do the whole show.

Speaker 2 We can. I can keep going.
We can.

Speaker 4 Actually, that's the first thing I do want to ask you.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 That I don't know how many people just like shoot the shit with you.

Speaker 2 Well, fortunately, I have family and friends who really don't care.

Speaker 2 They just don't care. You know, I've been thinking about this a lot this week.
It's very, very important. Like, I'm a writer, and so that gives me a kind of status, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 That the thing out here, this is the abnormal thing. You know what I mean? And then there's life.

Speaker 4 Do you pop into the abnormal thing and then you live mostly life?

Speaker 2 I try to stay as far away from the abnormal thing as I can. It's very deceptive.

Speaker 2 And I think it can damage people. So what's this like having going fully back into the abnormal thing, promoting a book? You know, it's dangerous in a very particular way.

Speaker 2 Like, I think like this sort of thing is always dangerous, dangerous, but it's dangerous in a particular way because you actually are speaking on behalf of another group of people. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Frankly, I don't know how long this can go on for.

Speaker 2 What do you mean by that? I just, I, you know, that 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.

Speaker 2 And it's like, I don't, there's just great danger in being that person.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 And there are people who, I mean, this is like where my darkest thoughts go. The people who profit off of those positions.
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like, you know, I have to say what I, what I really, really need to say. And then I really, it's very important that I get out the way.

Speaker 2 You know, like, it's really, really important and that I, you know, go on the next, you know?

Speaker 4 That's an interesting thought because you,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And then at some point, you're like, yo, is this your,

Speaker 4 is this how you make your money now?

Speaker 2 That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 4 They're almost like ambulance chaser lawyers where you go, I don't know if you actually care that people got hurt at work. Yes.
I feel like this is how you make your money now.

Speaker 2 That's it. So you're concerned about like 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So it's not even like a, it is a concern about perception, but there's a deeper concern about purpose. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I think like one of the questions I often or I've gotten over the past few days is, are you worried about the pushback? Are you worried about the blowback

Speaker 2 not really i mean i kind of knew what that was and i knew what was going what what i you know 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

Speaker 2 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 it's difficult though i you know so i i remember when i started on the daily show and like christiana has been with me almost like from the beginning because when when did you come in 2017 oh I love that you know the dates

Speaker 4 yeah it was early so I've been there that means I'd been only for a year I'd been hosting right I'd been there two years but a year hosting and I remember exactly what you're saying

Speaker 4 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 like a not an obligation but like a like an opportunity I was like oh this is cool we get 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?

Speaker 4 And I think there's a way we could look at this. And to give credit to the building, there were many people who did that.

Speaker 4 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, et cetera.
But to your point,

Speaker 4 it's like we would, let's say we talk about a shooting that takes place.

Speaker 4 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 then you got to talk about. And then

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 2 thing. Right, right, right.
And you cheapen maybe the thing that you're trying to actually bring attention to. Yeah, sure.
You know?

Speaker 2 So, you know, and I've been actually thinking about and was just in a conversation with someone about this

Speaker 2 earlier today about like what I can do structurally that is not visible, that is not, you know, public

Speaker 2 to advance that aim. It's so interesting.
I love the book, by the way. Oh, thank you.
Well, I was.

Speaker 4 It would be great if you said you hated it.

Speaker 2 Well, what a dream. I didn't hate it.
I've been through that.

Speaker 2 Oh, you have? No, no, no. I didn't hate it.
I didn't think maybe this might politic. It wasn't that radical.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And when you spoke about being a restless child and the confines of the classroom

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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 happy a lot of the time.

Speaker 2 And I was just thinking to me, it was remarkable that this child that was so restless, that would cry about a story, about that.

Speaker 2 You really read the book?

Speaker 2 Aggie is the same child that ends up in Dakar and

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 you call your books your children, but it was, it was, so much about you was very personal and very introspective.

Speaker 2 And I feel, I feel a lot of that is being missed in place of the final chapter yeah and the way what you experienced in israel and palestine you know it's funny i knew that was going to happen too okay and i was okay with that um one of the cool things about books is like they sit there and so people will come back and they'll see that over time and in terms of just getting to the the more personal aspects of stuff um I always tell my writing students, like, your readers could be doing anything else.

Speaker 2 You know, they could be watching TV. They could be on their smartphone.
They could be playing video games. You really have to justify the time.

Speaker 2 And so like, I am always like trying to sacrifice and bleed on the page. You know, I really need you to feel like my work is worth your time.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 You know, and so I'm trying to give everything I can. Yeah.
You know, when I'm writing.

Speaker 4 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 behalfs.

Speaker 4 But man, we haven't been able to stop talking about the CBS interview. Wow.

Speaker 4 And I mean, when I say we, I don't just mean the people who make this podcast.

Speaker 4 I mean, like, my friends,

Speaker 4 people online.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I'm totally off. Oh, you really? Let me tell you something.
Oh, you're off? Yeah, I'm completely off. Oh, people are not happy about that.
I mean, I'm obviously hearing this from other people.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Just the opening self of that conversation.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Yo, I sat there. I don't get flabbergasted by much.
I genuinely don't. I sat there and I was like, what?

Speaker 4 My first thought is: yes, but if you remove every context from everything, then everything could go anywhere. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 If you remove America's history and America's journey, America's this, then it's like, yeah, those people who fought against the British, they were terrorists.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And I'd like to know from you what, like, maybe like why you think

Speaker 4 people do that. Why do they remove all all context when speaking about Israel-Palestine?

Speaker 2 I am.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's fine. You know what I mean? I'm still me.

Speaker 2 I think also

Speaker 2 I have been in this in terms of the research and the writing, you know,

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 understanding how much of this was a third rail,

Speaker 2 I really, like, I knew this was coming. Okay.

Speaker 2 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 shadow boxing and waiting for a fight.

Speaker 2 And you see somebody throw the left that you've seen your Spartan partner throw like a thousand times by then.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I want to say something that actually is really important.

Speaker 2 The 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

Speaker 2 and um

Speaker 2 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 but she was like i want to ask you about this i want to ask you about that i want you it's like gail is considered oh my god

Speaker 2 gail king is it's considered listen but she didn't speak it was her handwritten notes her handwritten notes with it you know what i mean she had all these things. And

Speaker 2 I think

Speaker 2 while on the one hand, he probably did me a service, you know what I mean, by just kind of commenteering that interview, I don't think he did Nate and Gail a service.

Speaker 2 And I'm really, really sorry for them.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Don't, don't cry for me. I'm sure, you know,

Speaker 2 that interview will sell a lot of books. Because the fact of the matter is

Speaker 2 that reaction

Speaker 2 is actually endemic of what I'm actually writing about. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2 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, we took a, I feel like I would find this in the backpack of a settler colonialist.

Speaker 2 Yeah. you can't even imagine that yeah that framing just

Speaker 2 it doesn't exist it's like 10 steps that need to happen before and they aren't there

Speaker 2 they aren't even there you know what i mean and so

Speaker 2 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 that's the whole point of a podcast we don't have 20 seconds but but to your point um 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.

Speaker 2 I mean, one of the things I've really tried to maintain

Speaker 2 both personally and in my public presentation is obviously my great horror at maybe not obviously, but my great horror at October 7th.

Speaker 2 The fact that I don't say that perfunctorily, but I say it because at the core of my politics is human life.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And understanding that it didn't.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 Jerusalem, South Hebron Hills, Hebron itself,

Speaker 2 Lyd, Tel Aviv. What they told me was Gaza's worse.

Speaker 2 I know you've seen some stuff and you may tell you, Gaza, and this is obviously before October, they said Gaza is worse.

Speaker 4 Wow.

Speaker 2 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 just think,

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 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 Tanahasi Coates, that I can apprehend.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 so that you can look past something like that

Speaker 2 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 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

Speaker 2 where I

Speaker 2 20 years old born into Gaza which is

Speaker 2 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 the side of Israeli boats.

Speaker 2 If my mother picks the olive trees and she gets too close to the walls, she might be shot.

Speaker 2 If my little sister has cancer and she needs treatment because there are no facilities to do that in Gaza and I don't get the right permits, she might die.

Speaker 2 And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty. And the wall comes down.
Am I also strong enough or even constructed constructed in such a way where i say this is too far

Speaker 2 i don't know that i am

Speaker 2 you know i don't i i i don't i don't i don't i don't i don't know that i am you know and i and i just um

Speaker 2 i just wish we had room

Speaker 2 to work through that you know what i mean 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

Speaker 2 if they lived in the time

Speaker 2 of slavery, that they would not have been enslavers. And I was telling you, you would have.
Yeah. You would have, because it's a system.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And most human beings, you know, we exist within the system. Yeah, we exist within the world.
Within context. Yeah, we do.
Within context. And without that, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 This idea that there can be some triumphant, heroic individual who's going to go above and beyond.

Speaker 2 That's not a real thing. That's not history.

Speaker 4 We're going to continue this conversation right after this short break.

Speaker 4 I think about,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 But I remember having a conversation with President Obama when he was still in office.

Speaker 4 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 as I say, say

Speaker 4 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 not 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 they were getting I think it was one of the heads of ISIS he was on 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 were at the daily show talking about this.

Speaker 4 And I said, wait, where did they kill? They said, yeah, we got him. Clean strike, gone.

Speaker 4 I said, what about the taxi driver?

Speaker 4 And they were like, oh, yeah, well, the taxi's gone. I said, well, what about the taxi driver? And they're like, yeah, but this is an ISIS terrorist.

Speaker 4 I said, okay, maybe it's because I come from a quote-unquote third world country.

Speaker 4 Being a taxi driver, even in America, by the way, even in a first world, it's like those people are responsible for so many lives. Being a taxi driver is not a passion job.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 And I know you're celebrating that you've killed this person, but who might you have radicalized?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Who might you have, you know? And

Speaker 4 I think one of the reasons I love your writing so much is because

Speaker 4 it challenges us to continuously approach the most difficult topics with the nuance that anger and violence oftentimes don't get, you know?

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 2 I'm like, oh, this is sweet.

Speaker 4 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 there's the explosion coming.

Speaker 4 And I'm reading these sweet stories and I'm picturing you crying because of a football player 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 tanahasi differently i'm like what is this extremist thing and what nobody mentions in that interview yeah you spend the first

Speaker 4 I want to say like 10-ish pages

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 You talk about the names, the book of names that shows you all the millions of people who died in the Holocaust.

Speaker 4 You talk about the most painful stories, you know, 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.

Speaker 4 And I didn't know some of these like individual moments. And I was like, damn, this is hard.
Damn, this is painful.

Speaker 4 But all I kept thinking was, I was like, wait, wait, wait, this is not in the backpack of an extreme. This is like.

Speaker 2 It's probably not.

Speaker 4 No, but that's what I mean. It's like, you.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 That chapter, why would you start that story with the history of the Jewish people?

Speaker 2 It's actually not about the Palestinian people.

Speaker 2 And I, you know, I have to be pretty open about that.

Speaker 2 It takes a particular perspective, definitely. But

Speaker 2 if you notice, there's like symmetry, although it's not deliberately called out between that Senegal chapter and the Israel chapter. Yeah, I felt that.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah. people

Speaker 2 who don't celebrate Kwanzaa. You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 You know what I'm having to deal with that, you know, and,

Speaker 2 you know, frankly, I still haven't quite figured it all out yet, but the mess of that and then, you know, like working through that, right? You know,

Speaker 2 man, it is something to have an African name that nobody in Africa has. That's what I have.
Oh, wow. I have an African name that nobody in Africa has, right?

Speaker 2 And so you're kind of like working through that. And I actually think that's okay.
You know what I actually think that's fine, But like trying to work through that.

Speaker 2 And then here I am in this place where

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It has become an actual state. And I knew I was going to write about that, but

Speaker 2 you see this doesn't work if you can't see yourself in israel and in zionism if you can't if you think it is just evil people over here doing an evil thing then you've missed it yeah you know what i mean you've missed it this started somewhere you know what i mean it's it started somewhere and and i have to be honest and i said this in the piece once i started reading like the documents around Zionism, it was like on one level, I was like, oh, this is so clearly colonialism.

Speaker 2 Like I recognize a colonialist discourse.

Speaker 2 Well, first of all, they use the word colonized, but also, you know, depicting the people over there in a certain way, either as they don't exist or they're savage, one or the other.

Speaker 2 But the other part was

Speaker 2 I recognize the yearning.

Speaker 2 Like, I recognize, you know, Moses has talking about being a member of a degraded people. At one place, he says, you know, your.

Speaker 2 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 what I mean? You can't hide your Jewishness.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 the sympathy. Like I understand it, but then you see where it goes, right?

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 I started thinking, and this is imaginative and speculative, but this is, I think, what writers are supposed to do

Speaker 2 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 gonna go back to Africa and we're gonna civilize our brethren right yeah we're gonna sit we're gonna 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 I'm very

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 strong on this point.

Speaker 2 This is not a Jewish era. It's not a Zionist era.
You know what I mean? This is a human, a deeply, deeply human temptation that is wrong, but human nonetheless.

Speaker 2 I find in the book, what I found was interesting, I feel you implicate yourself. You talk about, I see American imperialism.

Speaker 2 I see,

Speaker 2 you know, evangelical Christianity. And as a bearer of an American passport who can go through certain checkpoints that others can't, I am enmeshed with that, whether I like it or not.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 It's actually us. And that's the key difference because people will tell you, they say, well, well, what about, you know, Sudan? What about China?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 That is the key. That is actually the key difference.
You know,

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 and this great Palestinian-American law professor, Nura Atticott, that they wrote together.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And he sent me, you know, a couple of weeks ago, like the report that they, that, that he and Nura had done, just outlining the human rights violations that, that had come over over the past year or so.

Speaker 2 And I saw that line about, 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

Speaker 2 we walk around the world, we go around the world, maybe not walk, we go around the world saying we are the font of democracy. We advanced ourselves through the fight against enslavement.

Speaker 2 We advanced ourselves through the fight against segregation. We advanced ourselves, you know what I mean? Martin Martin Luther King is our patron saint.

Speaker 2 But we are supporting segregation right now, right? That's the one thing that about that CBS interview, right? Like when I say segregation apartheid, not once did somebody say, no, that's not true.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he kept on saying, and why is that? Right, right, right.

Speaker 2 Not that's not true.

Speaker 4 He said, and why is that happening? Why is that?

Speaker 2 Which every single perpetrator of segregation in Jim Crow says. I'm so excited about apartheid.
Yeah, no, they said all sorts of good reasons for me.

Speaker 4 Well, for me, that's the parallel.

Speaker 4 It's is like you know i i 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 and we'll talk about this and you know one thing i i wish people knew more of is how 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 um yuval noaharari on yes and he's like he said i'm a zionist and he said but this is what my definition of zionism is it is me 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And he said, the West Bank is even more indefensible because there's not even a boogeyman Hamas to blame it on.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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, you know, and I think we're all guilty of it at different times.

Speaker 4 None of us wishes to be labeled something that we can never get out from under, right?

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 And so if that's why people are so, in my opinion, people are so afraid of saying, oh, yeah, that was racist.

Speaker 4 What I said was racist, what I did, because they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I know where this goes.

Speaker 4 No, I know. And I've noticed the same thing

Speaker 4 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 do this for the Bantu.

Speaker 4 And they said, 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.

Speaker 4 And then when I'll talk to my friends in and around Israel, Palestine, I'll say to them, they go, oh, how can you call it? How can anyone call it apartheid? And I'll say, okay, let's do it this way.

Speaker 4 You tell me what's different. I'm just going to tell you what apartheid was.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right.

Speaker 4 I'm just going to tell you what it was. And I would like you to tell me where you see a discrepancy.

Speaker 4 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, or, you know, where you could move or not move.

Speaker 4 That's what apartheid did. Then they're like, okay, it's like that.

Speaker 4 But, and then I'm like, no, don't give give me reasons let's forget reasons for a moment yeah 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

Speaker 4 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 yeah and oftentimes it's ended at yes there's many similarities but it's because it's because

Speaker 2 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 that and that and what i don't think folks realize is that's actually a further indictment.

Speaker 2 That's actually the, because you sound

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 And so when you say, for instance,

Speaker 2 you know, the Palestinians have done this, that, you know, suicide bombings,

Speaker 2 you know, terrorist attacks, et cetera. That's real.
That's real. And nobody would like deny the pain of that, you know?

Speaker 2 The problem is the violence of the oppressed is, that's always the reason. That's always the reason, you know? And so,

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 And I say, well, I think killing babies in the crib is wrong. Like, I don't think I could do that.
Right.

Speaker 2 But that doesn't justify slavery. Yeah.
Yeah. You see what I'm saying? That doesn't make that,

Speaker 2 you know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 2 because, you know what i mean that therefore justifies no no no no no no and i think like this is like a a a principle thing that cannot be gotten past either you think there are good reasons for segregation apartheid jump or you don't you know what i mean and in my mind there is never any reason.

Speaker 2 You know, like my dream of liberation is not like enslaving white people. That would be wrong.
Like I oppose enslavement. You know, I use the death penalty example all the time.

Speaker 2 I am opposed to the death. 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 Dylan Roof.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 4 You know, we can't imagine ourselves that way.

Speaker 4 Or we can't imagine ourselves doing the worst.

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 And, you know, the 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.

Speaker 4 I want you to not kill children. And he was like, no, but we don't want to.
And you've got to understand where Israel is coming. And I was like, yeah, no, no, I'm not saying that.

Speaker 4 And then I said to him something that I truly believe, but I don't know, again, because I haven't been fully tested.

Speaker 4 I don't know that I would be able to exercise it. And maybe even we,

Speaker 4 I said, you know what it is? It's the burden of the good guy.

Speaker 4 When you watch a movie,

Speaker 4 You watch a James Bond movie, right? For all these flaws, you watch James Bond. James Bond is pursuing one one of the villains.

Speaker 4 They've got like a vial that's going to kill the whole world, some virus.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 If a child falls, he has to stop.

Speaker 4 Superman, oh man, I want to go after Zod, but the building is falling.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And so I cannot let the people die in my fight with Zod just because I'm trying to get Zod. And I, do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 I keep going, I'm like, man, we do, of course, we understand it on like a, on a, on a hypothetical moral level when we watch it, right?

Speaker 4 But when we're tested, very few of us pass that test to get beyond our fear.

Speaker 2 The other thing is, like, the building is filled with people who are not you.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? And so then it's like,

Speaker 2 you know, how can you have empathy beyond

Speaker 2 yourself? Which I just think,

Speaker 2 I don't know, man. Like one of the things that I was, I thought a lot about there was

Speaker 2 these railies 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

Speaker 2 existential violence, you know, you might would start to think of things in those sorts of terms.

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 which holds that they went like lambs to the slaughter, like that there was no real resistance. And, you know, and so it's a kind of like,

Speaker 2 not just,

Speaker 2 I won't let genocide happen again, but that next time I'm, you know, I'm going to go out, you know, fighting.

Speaker 2 I don't think that story is particularly accurate.

Speaker 2 I don't think that version of it, that just, it doesn't correspond with how oppressed people act under systems ever, you know, any human being, you know, ever. But I think also beyond that, it's like,

Speaker 2 what is life for?

Speaker 2 You know, like, what, what is, what is, what is living for? What is, what is, like, what you're trying to survive for what?

Speaker 2 You know, um, and if,

Speaker 2 and

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I mean, I might jump off a building myself.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 2 Because I don't know what my life is then. Like, I don't, I don't know.
I have a life worth living myself.

Speaker 2 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 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 yeah when you no longer see the humanity in these people I think you can do anything right right but what about like

Speaker 2 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 think there's no i would i would challenge that funny enough.

Speaker 4 I actually think it's, it's the first part and it's what you said.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And you talk about this in the book.

Speaker 4 Go read, if you go read like the articles, and I think I'm really happy that Gen Z has been as on this as they have on like TikTok, on Twitter, on all of it.

Speaker 4 You now see with a real clear lens how the media tells the stories about what's happening in the Middle East.

Speaker 4 They will say, you know, a family killed in Tel Aviv, you know, a group, they'll make it human. And then on the other side, they'll go, 60 Palestinians.
But Palestinians is not a thing.

Speaker 4 They're not humans.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 I don't think anyone, to borrow your words from the book, would be able to grapple with that constant toll and pain.

Speaker 4 Because we'd be like, whoa, how many humans and how many children and how many people?

Speaker 4 And I think that's actually what it is: is throughout history, even if we zoom out from the conflict in the Middle East,

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 So when the U.S. drones a part of the Middle East, where it's a wedding or whatever, no, no, it's collateral damage, insurgents.

Speaker 4 We got the, but collateral damage is not people.

Speaker 2 Yeah, is what I'm saying?

Speaker 4 exactly and that and that i think is actually it

Speaker 4 don't go anywhere because we got more what now after this

Speaker 2 it's interesting because when you go to south carolina 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

Speaker 2 and it's interesting to me that you'll say how can they do that to me as a black person or as a really prolific black author?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So how did it feel actually living through that?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And like, I didn't really feel like between the world and me is going to be fine. You know, so

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 white self-interest that I was observing. And I mean that actually in the best way, right?

Speaker 2 Because

Speaker 2 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 in the world.

Speaker 2 They don't want people mocking them and laughing at them. And, you know, and to them, it's like book banning.

Speaker 2 Like, I'm going to have to send my kid out into the world. And

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like, these were kids in the 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?

Speaker 2 What we're talking about here.

Speaker 2 And so when I say self-interest, I mean they might even have my politics, but they recognize that part of a first-rate education is reading different things, taking things from different, like, like it was kind of that recognition of that value.

Speaker 2 It's not we completely and totally agree with Tanahase Coates. You know what I mean? It's just we want our kids to have a relatively high level education, you know?

Speaker 2 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 freedom struggles that have been advanced without, you know, some group of people from the majority seeing their interest

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I was talking before about my sympathy, like how I was reading the documents and everything, and I felt, you know, like the similarity.

Speaker 2 In reference to that,

Speaker 2 I get how hard it might be

Speaker 2 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.
Yeah. Because,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And somebody is telling you, no, you're actually sticking your foot on people's throat.

Speaker 2 That's hard to take. Yeah.
You know, that's hard. It doesn't mean it shouldn't be said, by the way.
It should be said.

Speaker 4 No, no, no, I hear you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but to deconstruct like the core of your identity in that way. Because when you do it, what's left?

Speaker 4 Well, there are two stories. Well, one less, one lesser story, but

Speaker 4 I don't know if you remember when World Central Kitchen, Jose Andres,

Speaker 4 you know, I mean, he does an amazing job. He's all over the world and he just feeds people.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And one of the more tragic stories that came out of the Israel-Palestine conflict was,

Speaker 4 I think it was seven of the World Central Kitchen people being killed in a strike.

Speaker 4 And you know, there's been all these reports and then like the Israel government said, oh, it was like rogues, sort of like some soldiers in the ranks who weren't supposed to be doing something.

Speaker 4 They went against orders and it's muddled. So I won't put my foot anywhere in particular because I keep reading new things about it.

Speaker 4 But what was most interesting for me was seeing that he got interviewed afterwards by, he got Haretz, you know, in in Israel they they they did like a almost full page spread on on him like an interview and then he was on I think it's channel 12 in um in Israel

Speaker 4 and I saw multiple people online when that was happening saying

Speaker 4 and I 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.

Speaker 4 And I saw multiple people saying that.

Speaker 4 Multiple people saying,

Speaker 4 I wasn't hearing this. I wasn't seeing this.
I wasn't.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 in a way, I think, you know, I think of what you talk about in your book, you know, 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.

Speaker 4 Because I think about how powerful it is to be able to craft a story or a narrative for people.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 They'll tell me straight up, they go, Trevor, I didn't know. I think

Speaker 4 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?

Speaker 4 And they say, remember, we had the national broadcaster. Yeah.
They broadcast what we watch. We weren't getting international stuff.
It was banned.

Speaker 4 You weren't getting music from America that was anything like Sugarman and all these songs that questioned. No, we weren't getting anything.
So our reality was shaped by the government.

Speaker 4 And if your reality is shaped, you almost have to be like Neo to escape.

Speaker 2 You really got to do something.

Speaker 4 Because I always think about that, you know, on that level, I go, forget who's a good person, who's a bad person.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Do you know what I mean? And I think about how many Israelis don't get like... the story on all sides.
I think about how many South Africans didn't get the story of apartheid.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And maybe, you know, it's a question I have to you then

Speaker 4 as a writer. It's like,

Speaker 4 how do you escape that? How do you even begin the journey of puncturing your reality? Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 4 You know, I think it's important everyone who listens to this understands that the book is a whole, it's not, if you think think it's israel palestine it's not that's the the most contentious issue right now right but the the part of the book where you're going into senegal

Speaker 2 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 who don't it's not just the beginning of a slave trade oh it's people right it actually started back when i was in college because when i when i 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 came and kidnapped us and we were kings.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And I think, you know, it's interesting. So I think by then I had let go of a lot of stuff, right?

Speaker 2 And I say that I'm still in process because even as I was walking down the street, I really do think I was that the film was still over my eyes. And I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2 I would just like repeatedly remark on the beauty of the senegalese people right they're very beautiful i have to say that okay but i have a question about that yeah i have a question about that yeah go let's do it is it that now 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 style their style and it's like what you know what i mean and so i but i 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 I couldn't get over that even existing.

Speaker 2 I knew it existed in an abstract, but this real way of thinking. Yes.
And you were like, have I been somehow tainted by that? That I'm surprised by the humanity of that. That was the worst part of

Speaker 2 just the way they lived. And then no, it was,

Speaker 2 that was.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And the fact of 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.

Speaker 2 The second thing was like.

Speaker 2 I had read all of the scholarship about how the door, no return is bullshit. It's not real.
Not that many many people went through. Gore, you know, ain't this and Gore ain't that.

Speaker 2 And I'm going to tell you, when that boat pulled off, I lost it.

Speaker 2 Even knowing.

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 even after, you know, you deconstruct all of this stuff that is myth and is not real?

Speaker 2 like some of this stuff still has a hold on you. I mean, I would, there'd be, you know, evenings when I would sit with two of the people I talk about in the book.
I'm going to do it. And Hanada.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 But see, the fact of the matter is,

Speaker 2 while some people might find that conversation hurtful,

Speaker 2 we had to have some kinship to even joke like that. Yeah.
Like, you don't just say that to people. You know what I mean? Like, you got to have, like, it has to be something that you're going to be.

Speaker 2 You still can't. Right, right.
You have to. You have to.
It's like cousins ripping each other.

Speaker 2 Yes, exactly. It's like cousins ripping each other.
But why are we cousins again? Yeah.

Speaker 2 Damn. But it was like when they, I mean, we are.
I got that feeling.

Speaker 2 I feel you. You know what I mean? But what?

Speaker 2 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 dress

Speaker 2 because they want to look like African-Americans. It seemed like that really sat with you.
You were like, okay, now what has happened here? That it was so meta that you couldn't really.

Speaker 2 Because this is at the same time as I'm doing, you're so beautiful. Like, I'm doing that.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Like, why would 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 but we look the way we look because

Speaker 2 rape is an indelible part of the experience of enslavement you know what i mean like it's in it's not a gift yeah systemic sexual assault right right that's that's why you know it is the way it is and so and it's it's a it's actually a marker you know, in that way of our division.

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? In the way that we were kind of very much like, like,

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 And, you know, what we got here forcibly, you know, became who we are. Yeah.
You know, and.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's probably even tied to the why are we cousins thing, you know what I mean? Because like, what are we? Like, what, like, what, what, like, what? Like, what are we?

Speaker 2 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.
You know, like African-American, either abroad in France,

Speaker 2 writing a book. Right, which I've done.
Yeah, which you've done. Which I've done.
In the James Baldwin. I wrote some of this book in France.
In the James Baldwin tradition. Right, right, right.

Speaker 2 Or it's like going to someplace in West Africa and feeling something. And you do mention the ancestors a lot, which I, which means we're cousins because, you know, we mentioned the ancestors.

Speaker 2 Right, right, right, right, right. But you're like, you know, part of.

Speaker 2 I'm paraphrasing, but part of your writing and the tradition you're in is like veneration of the ancestry. They're speaking to you and through you.
Yes, yes.

Speaker 2 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 we come out of senegal kind of still grappling yeah no doubt and i wonder why why is that did it not feel like home enough or did it feel like home like what was that confusion and there was a 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 i never what are we to each other or just what are we to each other i feel like we're kidding yeah and i felt like i i felt that but i i couldn't put it into words like i couldn't quite name it you know and 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

Speaker 2 like i think about like i spent so much time by the water and i think about like watching

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 until I went to Senegal. He was doing that like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Speaker 2 Because it is, yeah, because it is, yeah, because it is, you know what I mean. And it really struck me in this really, really kind of you know, beautiful way.

Speaker 2 And I think it probably will take a few more trips until I'm like not amazed by that. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 And then I can, you know, figure out like what that can is and what it means and everything.

Speaker 4 It's funny. I think of just the differing experiences.

Speaker 4 You know, what you're sharing now reminds me of when ryan kugler the director of black panther and fruit fail amazing amazing director he was he was going to south africa to do research for um black panther right oh he directed you i just yeah

Speaker 4 that's a good friend of mine that's why i started seeing you helping yeah yeah yeah so so 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 and so i said ryan let me let me hook you up with my people people yes

Speaker 4 tour guides yeah not like no i want you 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 them and they're walking around in soeto

Speaker 4 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 ah man this guy he hey man he's edgy man he's edgy

Speaker 4 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 know 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 tell told it to me and so did my friend from a different perspective.

Speaker 4 But he says, they're walking around, they walk around, they walk around. And I don't know if this was day one or day two, but Ryan stops and his shoulders relax

Speaker 4 and he starts to cry a little bit.

Speaker 4 And my friend's like, yo, is everything okay?

Speaker 4 And Ryan goes, I've never felt this feeling before.

Speaker 4 I have never seen blackness

Speaker 4 expressed

Speaker 4 in its full

Speaker 4 range.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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 all.

Speaker 4 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 that, in a Tossa family, in Soweto. Yes.

Speaker 4 I'm like, okay.

Speaker 4 But when he described it, it was the most poetic thing. What a gift it is to be able to see yourself

Speaker 4 as everything and anything. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 You know, and I think that's that when I'm listening to you, and even when you read it in the book, I feel you moving through. It's almost

Speaker 2 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

Speaker 2 thought and maybe it's still true. But when that sister told me about the bleaching and everything.
Yeah. So what is like where

Speaker 4 this is my theory? Oftentimes we

Speaker 4 look to those who we think have like figured it out and have found like we we look to those who inspire us, is the easiest way to put it, right? I know this personally growing up in South Africa.

Speaker 4 Many of us looked at African Americans and we were like, yo, that is it.

Speaker 4 I mean, I look at the struggle in South Africa. The Nelson Mandelas, the Winnie Mandelas, the, you know, the Oliver Tambos.

Speaker 2 You don't do that if you have the range of humanity. No, no, no.

Speaker 4 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

Speaker 4 it's because

Speaker 4 while there is still a struggle, 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.

Speaker 4 So like, I remember the first few weeks we were in New York, me, Joe OPO from Uganda, David, a friend of ours, also from Uganda, but South African. We're walking through the streets of New York.

Speaker 4 We're coming back from a soccer match.

Speaker 2 Cops pull us over.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 cop pulls us over we're carrying our sports equipment we're dressed in our sports gear cop goes hey where 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 yeah he's like do you mind if i search your bags we're 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 And you know, Joe, and we carried, and now we carried on talking about the game. Joe was like, no, Trevor, you have to pass the ball in the middle.

Speaker 4 And then I paused us, I think like two blocks up, I paused us and I said, guys, guys, guys,

Speaker 4 do you realize what just happened there?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 4 And they were like, oh, yeah, we got stopped.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 Right.

Speaker 4 So, we were just like, oh, yeah, sometimes the cops need to search you and we'll just keep it moving. Yeah.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 2 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, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2 colonialism did a number on us.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2 Like colorism is so rife. Like I grew up seeing women bleach and it was just a very normal thing.
You know,

Speaker 2 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, right. Displacement.

Speaker 2 You know, you were taken to another country, whether it's in the Caribbean or in America.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 And I think it warped our sense of what is beautiful.

Speaker 2 Separate from African Americans in the media and stuff like that, like fairer is seen as better.

Speaker 2 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?

Speaker 2 Did you guys have, I mean, I'm still really ignorant, but

Speaker 2 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,

Speaker 2 even though it still happens, you know, but like that whole like looking at yourself, like it, it, there was a stigma then from that point on among black people about like nose jobs, changing your eyes, doing certain.

Speaker 2 It's, I think that there's a key psychic difference where

Speaker 2 I'm not going to speak for all West Africans, but there's a perception like this is something I do as an act of social mobility.

Speaker 2 It's got nothing to do with how I actually feel about myself or my Ibbones, my Yoruba-ness, or my Lua, whatever tribe you are.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 Like, if you're not, yes, of course, no, it's like Trevor, I talk about it all the time.

Speaker 2 Like 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 brought into is mixed race?

Speaker 2 Because they're like, we, that's what we want to see, right?

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 So when you're

Speaker 2 status, so you're like, okay, I'm going to lighten my my skin and it it doesn't it's not it's a very

Speaker 2 again because race is constructed differently right your skin is not necessarily the basis of your racial or ethnic identity normally it's your tribe right yeah fully tribe yeah it's your tribe yeah yeah yeah so

Speaker 2 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 and you have this

Speaker 2 you have a legacy you have a legacy of passing like it's a whole because your tribe is defined by color in the us

Speaker 4 And it isn't in Africa.

Speaker 4 Your tribe is always going to be your tribe.

Speaker 2 Tribe is always your tribe. No matter.
There's not enough bleaching cream in the world that's going to stop me being Igbo, right?

Speaker 2 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-raising diaspora, oh, we were never enslaved, but we lost so much.

Speaker 2 We lost so much as well. And we often have the arrogance of like, oh, we have our language, we have, but we lost a great deal.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I wonder if, like, I'm still thinking, because you asked that question about,

Speaker 2 you know, that essay being unfinished, but not unfinished, not unless you're restless.

Speaker 2 You're still processing, you're grappling. I'm with you.
Because I feel emotionally, at least, it was like unfinished. Like it wasn't unresolved.

Speaker 2 And I think what I hear you saying, like, when you hear, when you say loss,

Speaker 2 that is something that I obviously immediately relate to.

Speaker 2 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.

Speaker 2 I mean, there's been this musical exchange back and forth, you know what I mean? That is, you know, even happening now. Um, but I guess, if I'm honest, what I left wondering about is,

Speaker 2 is the root of this kinship actually a shared sense of loss?

Speaker 2 You know what I mean? And if it is, is that actually actually enough? Is that kinship? You know what I mean? Like, is that okay?

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 when I was thinking about it, I was writing, I was like, I don't think that's enough. Because actually, in fact, the way I phrased it was, oh, all we have in common is the white man.

Speaker 2 Like, that was like my mind. Like, that's how I processed it.
But you're saying something different. Yeah.
You're saying something different.

Speaker 2 You're not saying it's, it's, it's the feeling inside of you, you know, of having, because I'm saying we do have that, that sense of loss.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's why why we go back yeah that's why we go back i mean all of these people doing you know oh my my family's from here in scotland which is a very american thing i'm from here in ireland i'm from and we're just like you know at a certain point it just disappears yeah 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 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

Speaker 2 this feeling of loss. And in ways that

Speaker 2 many people have contentious feelings about. But it was like whether you're a Moroccan Jew, an Iraqi Jew, Polish Jew, we're going to be under this umbrella.

Speaker 2 I think loss can be, has great kinetic energy.

Speaker 4 When you talk about the tracing, it's funny. I think of

Speaker 4 all your work in many ways as tracing, you know, and every beginning of a chapter

Speaker 4 and every every story that you tell in the book

Speaker 4 has a feeling of like, go and see. Yeah.

Speaker 4 It really has a go and see.

Speaker 2 See for yourself. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Your book is getting banned. Go and see.
You went to go and see. You know, your people come from Africa.
You have this identity and maybe you're connected. But go and see.
Yes.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 and it made me realize

Speaker 2 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 yeah 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 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 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 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

Speaker 2 you know what i mean and so i think seeing it for yourself running it through you know your own filters is is crucial and key you know i i know we're gonna wrap up soon but I was just thinking this is my black podcast.

Speaker 2 This is like,

Speaker 2 I've been running around talking to people for like three days and I have not,

Speaker 2 you know what I mean? I have not done this.

Speaker 2 I've needed to do this.

Speaker 2 We're fixing the diaspora right now. We're going to black Brits, South African.
I love it.

Speaker 2 I love it. That warms my heart.
Thank you for saying that.

Speaker 2 Thank you for saying that. It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 No, you know what I think? I'm going to send this to my French people. I'm telling you.
I'm going to send this. Like, like, my black French people.
They know what they're doing.

Speaker 2 I'm going to call them the wee wee blacks. I love that.
I love comedy.

Speaker 2 I love them too much. We black.

Speaker 4 When I'm doing comedy out there,

Speaker 2 I love it out there. I love it.
Because even over there, I tell my wife, I don't want too many African-American friends here.

Speaker 2 Like, there's a whole African-American diaspora in Paris. Yeah.

Speaker 2 I just, you don't want to be around. Well, a few of them is fine, but I don't want to, like, I got to, you know, see my people.
Yeah, say it. Say it.
You want to break it up?

Speaker 2 No, you want to break it up? Because I got to see some of the heads.

Speaker 2 I feel you. You got to break it up.
You got to break it up.

Speaker 2 No, no, no, not at all. Hey, man, this is what it's called.

Speaker 4 And I'll end by saying this to you.

Speaker 4 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 Tanahasi Coates, that book would fit in the backpack of somebody who truly sees other people as human beings first and foremost.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 4 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.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I would love it. I would love it.
Thank you for the discussion.

Speaker 4 Yeah, man. Thank you so much.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 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 Yameen, and Jodi Avigan.

Speaker 4 Our senior producer is Jess Hackle. Claire Slaughter is our producer.
Music, Mixing and Mastering by Hannes Brown. Thank you so much for listening.

Speaker 4 Join me next Thursday for another episode of What Now.