Ta-Nehisi Coates Interview: Examining Racial Opposition & the Challenges Faced by Obama

Ta-Nehisi Coates describes how the racial opposition to Barack Obama was structural, and how his birth certificate controversy was familiar and “had echoes within our history.” Coates discusses joining press meetings with Obama and the reasons it was difficult to be critical of him.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an essayist, journalist, and writer who often addresses complex and challenging issues including racial identity, systemic racial bias, and urban policing. Coates began his career writing for various periodicals, including Washington Monthly, Philadelphia Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Time Magazine, O Magazine, and many others. In 2008, his career blossomed when he became a blogger for The Atlantic, quickly growing a following due to his grasp on pop-culture and penetrating insights. Over the course of a decade at The Atlantic, Coates became a national correspondent, writing about social, cultural, and political issues with a particular focus on African Americans and white supremacy. Coates wrote several pieces about Obama and his presidency; his essay “Fear of a Black President” earned him a 2013 National Magazine Award. Coates has written notable non-fiction books including The Beautiful Struggle, Between the World and Me, and We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy -- a compilation of new and previously published essays about the Obama Era and its aftermath. Coates wrote his first novel, The Water Dancer, in 2019, and has had a successful run writing Marvel’s comic series The Black Panther (2016-2021) and Captain America (2018-2021).
From the 2021 three-part HBO documentary series Obama: In Pursuit Of A More Perfect Union. The personal and political journey of President Barack Obama is explored that weaves together conversations with colleagues, friends, and critics, alongside his own speeches and interviews.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates, Author and Journalist
Interviewed By: Peter Kunhardt
Interview Date: November 19, 2018
© Home Box Office and Kunhardt Film Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
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[@flutieflambert]

Symbols are important when Obama foreclosed on Detroit? Important for whom? The professional managerial class who go to Harvard and didn’t lose their homes, that’s who. One out of two home owners in Detroit lost their homes and intergenerational wealth, 70% were black, 100% were economically disenfranchised. How condescending and presumptuous to say that what they need is symbolism. What they need is money and power and Neoliberals like BHO have spent the last 50 years depriving the poor of both money and power and handing them “symbols” that cost the wealthy nothing.

[@robertasirgutz8800]

He's the "idealized" Black dude, in terms of a public face. An intellctual's desired face of "Blackness". Commanding, articulate and charming. But in terms of substance, he wasn't advancing critical issues facing the poor and working class. He was an elite who ushered Wall Street into his cabinet after the '08 financial crisis they manufactured! He wasn't an ally of his community, supported the war in Iraq. Nice, cosmetically but ineffective if not dangerous. Coates looks pretty superficial.

[@flutieflambert]

Amen. Neoliberals have monopolized “race politics” in order to grab the mic and speak on behalf of the people they disenfranchise. Sadly, race politics has become a deliberate capitalist obfuscation of class struggle within the black community (as it exists in all communities. Class struggle is not unique to Black people.)

[@jeromedanielson4422]

I agree, having told other black people the observations you stated, they would often say I wasn't being fair. It's not enough to be a black man as president without critiquing them regardless of their race. Settling for whatever just because Obama is black is ridiculous.