May 11, 2018

Andrew Sullivan finds himself "instinctually siding with the independent artist" like Kanye West...

"... perhaps because I’ve had to fight for my own individuality apart from my own various identities, most of my life," writes Andrew Sullivan in  "Kanye West and the Question of Freedom."
It wasn’t easy being the first openly gay editor of anything in Washington when I was in my 20s. But it was harder still to be someone not defined entirely by my group, to be a dissident within it, a pariah to many, even an oxymoron, because of my politics or my faith....

I’m not whining about this experience, just explaining why I tend to side reflexively with the individual when he is told he isn’t legit by the group. In that intimidating atmosphere, I’m with the dissenter, the loner, and the outlier. I’m with the undocumented, the dude who has had his group credentials taken away.

And so I bristle at Ta-Nehisi’s view that West cannot be a truly black musician and a Trump admirer, based on the logic that the gift of black music 'can never wholly belong to a singular artist, free of expectation and scrutiny, because the gift is no more solely theirs than the suffering that produced it …What Kanye West seeks is what Michael Jackson sought — liberation from the dictates of that we.'

I bristle because, of course, Coates is not merely subjecting West to 'expectation and scrutiny' which should apply to anyone and to which no one should object; he is subjecting West to anathematization, to expulsion from the ranks. In fact, Coates reserves the worst adjective he can think of to describe West, the most othering and damning binary word he can muster: white.... Coates denounces West for seeking something called 'white freedom'....

I even feel something similar in a different way as a gay man in a straight world, where the general culture is not designed for me, and the architecture of a full civic life was once denied me. But that my own freedom was harder to achieve doesn’t make it any less precious, or sacrosanct. I’d argue it actually makes it more vivid, more real, than it might be for someone who never questioned it. And I am never going to concede it to 'straightness,' the way Coates does to 'whiteness.' As an individual, I seek my own freedom, period....

There is no gay freedom or straight freedom, no black freedom or white freedom; merely freedom, a common dream, a universalizing, individual experience. 'Liberation from the dictates of the we' is everyone’s birthright in America... A free artist owes nothing to anyone, especially his own tribe."
Sullivan focused on the same material in Coates's essay that I wrote about a few days ago: "I had to read it out loud to try to absorb the part where we can understand why West's idea of freedom is specifically white. It didn't work. Maybe because I'm white and that's making me think that complete freedom is every human being's birthright and that it would be racist to tell black people to adhere to a prescribed black form of freedom."

I'm interested in Sullivan's attention to the idea of the artist, even as he speaks of identifying with Kanye and "the independent artist." I don't think Sullivan regards himself as an artist, and I don't know about Ta-Nehisi Coates, but I suspect that Coates does see himself as an artist — as a literary genius of some sort. Certainly Coates hears himself spoken of that way, and his prose style — to my eye — reflects that self-image. Coates has made race his template, his brutally repetitive message. His artistic freedom has moved him to continually say that black people are not free. He's really not free to say anything else, is he? So he must say it about other artists, even as those other artists claim their freedom to say whatever they want too. Coates can only describe a prison. He can't put anyone else in it. He can only invite them to perceive the prison and themselves inside it.

57 comments:

Mike Sylwester said...

Sullivan's article does not have such a long paragraph.

Bay Area Guy said...

Sullivan is totally right here. But, it's still fun to make fun of him, because he was so excitable and unhinged so often. It was smart of him to declare victory (legalized gay marriage) and then go home.



James K said...

"... perhaps because I’ve had to fight for my own individuality apart from my own various identities, most of my life.”

He seems to think that a defense of independent thinking requires some sort of justification, or is only a consequence of his specific experience, rather than a general self-evident principle. Kind of sad

Ann Althouse said...

"Sullivan's article does not have such a long paragraph."

Yeah, I decided to change the formatting before I read your comment, so obviously I agree.

That single-paragraph is a form I like to use instead of the block and indent, but at some point, there's just too much text for it to work.

exhelodrvr1 said...

He's trapped in the prison of his own racism.

Sebastian said...

"I tend to side reflexively with the individual when he is told he isn’t legit by the group."

You mean, like, when prog women went after Palin?

I call BS.

But he has a point, as does Althouse.

Blacks aren't truly free as long as they bitch about whites wanting them to be free just like anyone else.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

His artistic freedom has moved him to continually say that black people are not free. He's really not free to say anything else, is he? So he must say it about other artists, even as those other artists claim their freedom to say whatever they want too. Coates can only describe a prison. He can't put anyone else in it. He can only invite them to perceive the prison and themselves inside it.

Beautifully and artistically written Althouse.

traditionalguy said...

The slave society only has two classes: Masters and slaves. And slaves are in need a head man to negotiate with the Master. That's Coates job. Kanye says that he is not living in that slave society of the past 400 years. That means Coates is out of work, unless he wants to be a reinactment actor at National Parks.

Meanwhile Kanye rolls. And Sullivan writes the history for him.

Bay Area Guy said...

Tennessee Coats has become the "racial enforcer" of the Leftwing narrative, albeit with a soft literary touch.

If any prominent black strays from the Leftwing herd, ole' Tennessee will try to round him up like a vigilant sheepdog.



Gunner said...

Off Topic but this whining about someone in the White House saying John McCain is "dying anyway" is Peak Stupid. It was in a private conversation with little context given. These same liberal assholes acted like McCain was Hitler in 2008. Does anyone really take them seriously?

Earnest Prole said...

Like white racists, Coates believes race is an essential (in its original meaning of primary and indelible) human category that by definition must separate us.

Rigelsen said...

Coates can only describe a prison. He can't put anyone else in it. He can only invite them to perceive the prison and themselves inside it.

Yes. It's ironic that Coates illustrates West's own point so well. Coates remains bound by the narrative of slavery whether he would call himself a slave or not. The slaveowner, in this case, being himself.

Mike Sylwester said...

I wish that Andrew Sullivan had made at least some effort in his article to report about whether Kanye West is friends or enemies with Taylor Swift right now.

That's the issue involving West that interests me -- not this nonsense about whether West is friends or enemies with Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Ann Althouse said...

@Bay Area Guy

Please don't insert extra paragraph breaks at the end of your comments like that. I have a rule against it and will delete. I don't want to have to do that.

Nonapod said...

Almost nobody likes to be defined by simple parameters such as this is all you are and this is all you can ever be. We use terms like individuality and freedom to describe that desire to not be constrained by other peoples definitions.

But conversely human beings like to categorize things and people. It's something we just do. We naturally tribalize and otherize. So there's this constant struggle between the categorizers and the categorized. With identity politics the Left (progressives, socialists, ect.) categorize different victim groups ostensibly for benefit of the individuals in those groups. But individuals may not always want to be thought of as victims, or have real or imagined constraints placed on them. But since identity politics elevates the group above the individual, dissidents undermine the paradigm and must be denounced and deplored and assaulted mercilessly.

MadisonMan said...

You have written very elegantly about Coates' writing, and I thank you. Too many people in Madison bow down before him, and I think he's just trapped in the past -- but a White Man dare not say such things in this town. Because privilege.

eddie willers said...

Coates has made race his template, his brutally repetitive message. His artistic freedom has moved him to continually say that black people are not free. He's really not free to say anything else, is he?

Boiled the whole thing down to three sentences. Excellent.

Achilles said...

I wonder when Andrew will get around to noticing Trump has supported gay marriage for as long as Sullivan has been alive and that we haven't started any new wars recently.

Eventually he will notice Trump is the best president he could have hoped for.

But Andrew has a tendency to crawl up women's uteri so...

robother said...

If Kanye is now White, shall we arrange an exchange, so Rachel Dolezal can transition to Black? Is a transfusion necessary to honor the "one drop" rule? (Easy for Rachel, but rather drastic for Kanye.) High level negotiations between Coates and whoever heads the KKK will have much to determine, but in light of their shared (literally) racist values, I am confident a peaceful resolution can be reached.

rcocean said...

More talk about TNC? The liberals intelligentsia certainly loves his black body.

I'm surprised Sullivan didn't push back against Jeffrey Goldberg who causally called him an anti-semite and racist about six times in the published "Atlantic Magazine" talk about Kevin Williamson.

Or maybe discretion is the better part of valor - when you're a Catholic Brit in American Journalism.

bleh said...

For the life of me I don't understand the appeal of Coates's writing. I understand the appeal of his ideas, although I strongly dislike his race-obsessed worldview. But the quality of his writing gets so much praise that it's almost taken for granted that he's the best writer in the country. I have read his work and, in my opinion, his writing is very mediocre, and sometimes not very good.

Is it just a case of liberal whites overrating a black man who expresses certain ideas that they like? Be honest -- isn't Andrew Sullivan just a much better writer than Coates?

rcocean said...

Of Sullivan has to do the tiresome trick all liberal/leftists do. They just can't criticize their side, but have to drag in examples - even BS examples - of how the RIGHT IS NO BETTER.

Except it is. NR, Weekly Standard, Red State, etc. have pretty big tents compared to their liberal counterparts who expect EVERYONE to toe the party line.

BTW, I was trying to think of pro-trump writer at Atlantic, the NYT, WaPo, or any liberal magazine and came up empty. But I can think of a zillion anti-Trumpers at NR and the weekly standard.

rcocean said...

And I'll just say it again. Glenn L and J. McWhorter at BHTV are 10x as smart as TNC.

I can't read TNC - he's just too dumb. Sorry.

And judging by the transcript of the Atlantic magazine talk on Williamson - the dude talks even worse than he writes.

Trying to figure out the point in all that blather is like trying to find a toothpick in barrel full of crap.

Bay Area Guy said...

@AA,
Sorry, my bad. Not intentional.

n.n said...

I was trying to think of pro-trump writer at Atlantic, the NYT, WaPo, or any liberal magazine and came up empty. But I can think of a zillion anti-Trumpers at NR and the weekly standard.

The clear and progressive effect of Russian bot influence.

Ann Althouse said...

@BAG Thanks.

wildswan said...

I think everything is moving including the actuality of "black identity." Not to say what it is (or was) or how it's moving but it seems to me that "black identity" has to move if everything else does. For instance, if America re-industrializes it will either happen in cities or it will not. Either one will change the black community's experience. Or, another for instance:if Chicago and other major city pensions aren't paid, the black middle class will take a tremendous hit. A high stock market will help cushion the shock but the market will fall if anything happens to Trump and his program. So in light of new these new economic and social facts should the black community continue to vote Democrat? and if it votes Democrat, what should it ask in return? So the new situation can't be handled by the "identity" or policies supported in the past. So the black community's members need to be free to think - an American right which the left would like to suppress, especially in an important leftist voting block.

Luke Lea said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Luke Lea said...

Rappers have been with Trump for years: https://youtu.be/-WhGgHjwZxU

I thought I hit on the slogan "Trump change, not chump change," but no, rappers got there first: https://goo.gl/5773bG

But then rap seems like a sort of prison, at least to me from the outside. So maybe rappers can't be free?

rhhardin said...

You don't fight for individuality. You just do it.

Ficta said...

I had to delete a comment and resubmit it a couple days ago because when it posted it had the extra space after it. I'm not sure how it got there, I don't think I put it there.

Paul Mac said...

I like Candace Owen's take. Of course he doesn't mention her or really what it was that started this all. Part of that prison mentality you have to control not just what people do but the information in and out.

https://youtu.be/A4A39njpWDA?t=2m

I love the black ladies that aren't supposed to exist at the end of the video asking questions.

Jupiter said...

"but I suspect that Coates does see himself as an artist — as a literary genius of some sort."

Coates knows he can't write. That's really his prison. He isn't any good, and he knows it. He can't give it up because it's his meal ticket and the source of what little self-respect he has. But he knows he can't write. He is a trained black man, who writes for white people. Blacks don't read his BS.

Birkel said...

I write again: The Berlin PC Wall was built to keep people inside the Wall. It is one of the few walls in history built not to repel, but to enclose.

Kanye West has shown that there are verbal snipers on the Wall but no real bullets.

Even from inside Sarah Palin's uterus, reports of Kanye's breach of the Wall resonates.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

In fact, Coates reserves the worst adjective he can think of to describe West, the most othering and damning binary word he can muster: white

I noticed that, too. Seems a bit problematic, no? Seeing someone allegedly embrace or be ensorcelled by another group or culture and finding that group or culture SO TERRIBLE as to be an insult when used as a modifier? If I said "I don't have a problem with music, I just hate Indian music" everyone would understand immediately that I was a vicious racist spewing hate. And YET! The nice centrist people don't seem to have a problem when "white" is used in almost exactly that same way--how dare West pursue white freedom, etc.
Inexplicable.

rcocean said...More talk about TNC? The liberals intelligentsia certainly loves his black body.

Nailed it; perfect. Thank you!

Bay Area Guy said...

Tennessee Coates and his intellectual allies want reparations. It's a strange request:

1. As a group, we're really screwed up.
2. But the cause of our being screwed up, is your slavery from 160 years ago.
3. Since you caused the problem, you need to make us whole again.
4. Passing civil rights laws and spending $1 Trillion on the welfare state is not enough.
5. So, we want cash and power and apologies and expressions of white guilt.

And, my rather glib response is, sorry, Tennessee, life is too short to worry about that bullshit. Get a job.

BarrySanders20 said...

"Coates has made race his template, his brutally repetitive message. His artistic freedom has moved him to continually say that black people are not free. He's really not free to say anything else, is he?

Boiled the whole thing down to three sentences. Excellent."

My thoughts too.
Damn, Althouse, sometimes you nail it. TNC only has a hammer . . .

mikee said...

Andrew Sullivan, like Maureen Dowd, are names I feel zero need to hear ever again.
Here's hoping that soon everyone feels the same.

William said...

Kanye is married to a Kardashian. I don't think transcend is the right word, but the Kardashians live in a world or an orbit or maybe a dimension where things like race, gravity, and money have a different valence than here on earth. I would never accuse Kanye of acting white, but he is becoming an assimilated Kardashian. Even his ass is getting fatter......Coates and Sullivan have this in common: They believe the straight white men are infinitely perfectable and that,when and only when straight white men are perfect, will the problems in their communities dissipate. Therefore the best thing that they can do for their communities is to inform straight white men of their moral failings.

Marty said...

Mikee: Yep.

Michael said...

Oates is a lightweight. Shallow.

cassandra lite said...

That was really smart, Ann.

the 4chan Guy who reads Althouse said...

Michael said...
"Oates is a lightweight. Shallow."

You Darryl Hall fans are fucking haters and shit.

walter said...

Has Andy had the equivalent of a Crip Alert issued?

walter said...

"Even his ass is getting fatter......Coates and Sullivan have this in common:"
That is some tricky punctuation.
I began to think there was a conspiracy of ass fattening among them...Kim K ass-puppetering the whole deal.

n.n said...

Diversity or "color" politics.

Molly said...

BDNYC: "I have read his [Coates's]work and, in my opinion, his writing is very mediocre, and sometimes not very good. Is it just a case of liberal whites overrating a black man who expresses certain ideas that they like?

1. The soft bigotry of low expectations. (That's a phrase that grows in respectability every week.)
2. Let's challenge Coates's admirers to nominate certain sentences or paragraphs that illustrate his writing skills. (I don't intend this to be mean: there are a lot of Althouse commenters who are very smart; so this is more in the nature of "crowd sourcing". )


Sullivan: "Coates reserves the worst adjective he can think of to describe West, the most othering and damning binary word he can muster: white.... Coates denounces West for seeking something called 'white freedom'.... "

This is a pretty horrible condemnation of the state of our current public debate. Not that one person can name-call, but that this particular name-calling can receive such widespread acceptance and even admiration. So I propose that "white" (used in this way) now has the same status as N***** (the n-word): people within the group can use the term with impunity, but those outside the group cannot use the term (and must replace it with some abstruse term such as "caucasoid-Americans").

Jeff said...

If I said "I don't have a problem with music, I just hate Indian music" everyone would understand immediately that I was a vicious racist spewing hate.

Are you kidding? Why should anyone think that? Maybe you just don't like Indian music.

There was a time in the late 1960's when the Beatles and some other celebrities were very interested in all things Indian. George Harrison in particular really liked the sitar and famously collaborated with Ravi Shankar. I remember hearing that stuff when I was about ten and wondering what all the fuss was. A little bit of sitar goes a long way. Norwegian Wood was not bad, but it wasn't great the way the first couple of Beatles albums were.

Does that make me a racist? If it does, then I guess the vast majority of Beatles fans are racist too, as there are a lot of us who didn't think much of the Indian-influenced Beatles work.

Lots of people grew to hate disco. Were they all racists?

I dislike most rap music, with it's repetitive beats, lack of melody, misogyny and crude language. I don't think I'm alone in this. Are all who dislike of rap racist?

When everyone's a racist, no one is.

Kevin said...

“Tennessee Coates and his intellectual allies want reparations.”

Obama doubled the national debt while shaking down corporations using the Justice Department to shovel money to left-wing groups.

What else does Costes want? A certificate suitable for framing?

Kevin said...

“When everyone's a racist, no one is.”

Why do you think people on the left like Joe Biden keep getting a pass for their racist statements? The people pushing the race narrative always insulate themselves from the charges.

Their plan is to install themselves at the top to cleanse the rest of society.

If they have to pretend to like Indian music, so be it. A lot of them already pretend to like hip hop.

Valentine Smith said...

Coates is imprisoned by his own hatred and resentment. He swallows poison every day and then expects the collective "white man" somehow to die. Actual freedom terrifies him as it does all identity whores. In his case, without the succor of collective blackness there is nothing for him to stand with or rather cling to and any apostasy loosens the anxiety that is bound up by being "right" in his ideological (actually religious) viewpoint.

JAORE said...

Coates has made race his template, his [brutally] repetitive message.

You misspelled boringly.

A one trick pony if there ever was one.

Kevin said...

“They believe the straight white men are infinitely perfectable and that,when and only when straight white men are perfect, will the problems in their communities dissipate. Therefore the best thing that they can do for their communities is to inform straight white men of their moral failings.”

That was good.

Chris N said...

If I remember correctly (and I could be wrong), Coates' father was in the Black Panthers and polygamous to some extent. Clearly his ideas settled into his son even if he wasn't terribly involved. Now Coates is passing on many similar ideas (the core of the father/son tradition, as Coates sees things, apparently) to his own son. Talk about 'mind-forged manacles'

Such radical, sometimes violent, collectivist liberation theology and identity ideology was not uncommon in that generation (Coates apparently runs in circles where reparations are how old heads still deal with the past...ledgers of suffering and dreams of payback). Walking into the back of the Black Muslim bakery or in on a Panther meeting must have had a certain glamour, mystery, and defiant appeal as a kid. Pride and false pride.

The coalitions supporting Coates under the progressive umbrella have little to no appeal to me...these ideas operate in a deeper substrate of belief but.the costs are obvious and relatively few benefits have accrued to me personally: Politicizing the personal, collectivizing the individual, and attacking all enemies as morally deficient and evil on the way to utopia isn't good for the soul. Many followers seem to not care what they don't know, for they're righteous in what they think they know, and incentivized against continuing to pursue the truth.

The spectacle of writers and readers gathered at the Atlantic approaching Coates with a mixture of adulation, trepidation, and condescension is further evidence of how such hollow many of these ideas are. They only seem to work for a while, and against an enemy, the promise of liberation from something hanging in the air.

Whether or not our institutions and Republic can bear all of this coming to light (the past more deeply, as I see things, beneath these many political and ideological disputes), is still in some doubt.

Scott said...

Racism and tribalism are different - - a lot of people are accusing people of the first when they mean the second. Certainly, accusing people of racism pisses them off more. But the resulting confusion keeps people talking past each other.

mishu said...

Coates is the crab in the bucket that pulls down the ones trying to get out.

mishu said...

Coates is the crab in the bucket that pulls down the ones trying to get out.