Take it from someone who’s both Black and Jewish: Ta-Nehisi Coates weaponizes race to spread antisemitism
No, it’s not racist to speak out against The Message.
Author Ta-Nehisi Coates is seen onstage during the Alight Align Arise: Advancing the Movement for Repair National Conference at Thompson Buckhead on June 07, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Carol Lee Rose/Getty Images for Decolonizing Wealth Project
Ta-Nehisi Coates believes he understands the plight and injustice faced by Palestinians within and beyond Israel’s Green Line, and that he is morally compelled to advocate on their behalf because he is African-American — a “conquered person” as he describes himself.
I am also Black, and Jewish, and I also feel morally compelled — to call out the anti-Zionism and, yes, antisemitism at the core of Coates’ new book, “The Message.”
The problem is that Coates, despite his claim of racial license, knows very little about Israel and Palestine – he’s been there once, for barely 10 days – and has made clear he has no interest in presenting Israeli voices that do not espouse his anti-Zionist views.
All of this has been known for weeks, ever since Coates – a revered critic on America’s legacy of racism and inequality – revealed the themes of this long-awaited book months ago. What many might not have anticipated, however, is the way in which the antisemitism that infects the book has already begun to spread through the culture.
But then again, no one should be surprised – because that’s how antisemitism works — insidiously and parasitically, in the words of the Canadian-Lebanese-Jewish author and philosopher Gad Saad.
The spread of far-left thinking, Saad writes, manifests like an ideological miasma infecting everything it encounters with rapaciousness and impunity.
The recent fallout from the publication of the new book The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests that anti-Zionism and antisemitism pretty much work the same way – particularly when combined with race and identity politics. Only The Message’s message is magnified by the specter of race, and its ability to strike down intellectual exchange out of fear of being canceled, called “racist” or worse.
The first clue that The Message was infecting the culture around it came last week during an appearance by Coates on the CBS Morning News. There, the author tussled with anchor Tony Dokoupil, who’s white and Jewish and challenged Coates omission of pro-Israel voices along with his failure to include in the book, any mention of Palestinian terror or violence.
The fallout was swift and dramatic; within days the interview – which Coates supporters deemed an exercise in overreach and white privilege; detractors as an example of overdue scrutiny – eclipsed the book itself as the news story. First, CBS censured Dokoupil for failing to adhere to network interview standards. When details of that meeting were leaked. Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, came to Dokoupil’s defense. Then, the entire affair wound up on the desk of billionaire businesswoman Shari Redstone, who had recently sold CBS to a new group of investors.
Redstone, who is Jewish, lambasted CBS, describing the DoKoupil browbeating as a “mistake.” Many of Dokoupil’s colleagues, seem to agree, but are reportedly afraid to advocate on his behalf for fear of being “ostracized” by network higher-ups. For the moment, CBS – aided by an inevitably-called in DEI consultant – wisely seemed focused on simply putting the entire saga behind them.
But not Coates. As the drama with Dokoupil played out, Coates continued his book promotion tour, which quickly morphed into a multi-platform woe-fest. Like the parasite Saad so presciently spoke of, Coates’ victim narrative went viral – most dramatically on former Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s “What Now” podcast. Along with Coates describing Dokoupil as “commanding” the original CBS interview, the author went on to declare – without irony or restraint – that he is not so sure he wouldn’t have joined the thousands of Hamas marauders who attacked Israel two October 7th ago.
But the escalations did not stop there. Soon, the attention spread to Noah himself – as fine-eyed digital sleuths unearthed a trove of anti-Israel and antisemitic social media posts made by Noah over a decade ago. “Almost bumped a Jewish kid crossing the road. He didn’t look b4 crossing but I still would hav felt so bad in my german car!” Noah tweeted in 2009. “Behind every successful Rap Billionaire is a double as rich Jewish man,” he added in 2014. You get the idea. Such sentiments are not entirely surprising considering that Noah, during his chat with Coates, compared Gazan plight to those fighting in “the American revolution.”
Revealed on the heels of the Coates interview – and the same week Noah released a new children’s book – the tweets are a damning indictment of Noah’s own latest antisemitism and the ways in which such thinking is now allowed to percolate with so little oversight or consequence. Partially when those doing the percolating are people or color like Noah and Coates.
Amid all of this messiness, Coates’ views toward Israel became the focus of Jews and Jewish groups down in Miami last week, as well. There he was supposed to appear at the prestigious Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami’s downtown, as part of an event sponsored by the city’s beloved Books & Books bookstore. Both spaces have strong Jewish pedigrees and provenance. The Arsht Center is named after one of Miami’s leading Jewish families (a serious accolade in a town filled with them), the latter has Jewish owners.
Across the city, Jews raged at Coates’ forthcoming arrival — incensed that Jewish-affiliated spaces would welcome a man with such a clear and unrepentant anti-Israel paper trail. The problem, however, is that they were raging in silence – with nary the Miami Jewish Federation nor the South Florida branch of the ADL, nor the millionaires or billionaires screaming that Coates be canceled willing to take a strong public stance against him. Behind the scenes email campaigns yes, but no strident statements or interviews with the media.
As one prominent, outraged Jew said to me, “We are all terrified to take on Coates because we’re afraid of being called racist.”
In the end, Hurricane Milton, which tore through Florida last week, forced Coates to stay home. But he could still show up — the Arsht invite has yet to be rescinded, and Coates is counting on local Jewish timidity to keep it that way.
And so barely two weeks after its release, The Message – and its message of contrived and dangerous intersectionality – have not just revealed the extent of its author’s bigotry, but has ensnared a major American network, high-profile broadcasters, long-time industry titans, a revered South African-born host and one of the nation’s most prominent Jewish communities. And who knows what might transpire this week.
This is Saad’s parasite at work — unquenchable, unstoppable and, in this case, expanding to plant anti-Israel beliefs throughout American media, culture and finance.
Once there, as has already transpired between Coates and Noah, the narrative begins to evolve from its original sin – Coates’ audacity at writing such an inflammatory book – to Jews and Israel and “Israeli apartheid” and “genocide.” And so the parasite has metastasized – and unchecked, it will win.
Because this is how antisemitism and anti-Zionism have always won — by obscuring the hate at their core and shifting the spotlight into their Jewish targets rather than bigoted perpetrators.
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