Ta-Nehisi Coates on His Debut Novel “The Water Dancer,” Slavery & Reparations

Celebrated writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’s first novel, “The Water Dancer,” was released today. Centering on a man named Hiram Walker, who was born into slavery in 19th century Virginia, the novel is a “crowd-pleasing exercise in breakneck and often occult storytelling,” a review in The New York Times stated. Over the past decade Ta-Nehisi Coates has become one of the nation’s celebrated writers. In 2014, he wrote a piece titled “The Case for Reparations,” which rejuvenated the push for the government to pay reparations to the descendants of slaves. His 2015 book, “Between the World and Me,” a National Book Award winner, was written as a letter to his adolescent son. In our New York studio, we speak with Coates about “The Water Dancer” and his attempt in his first novel to “get at American myth” that exists around race and reparations.
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[@aliciaburbank9962]

Your talent is undeniable. Keep creating and teaching Mr Coates. We see you!

[@bo24.u.98]

👀😄

[@ladyd7182]

Truth is Reparation is long over due agree or not. # ADOS

[@JNUMusic]

Reparations 2020

[@owlnationlegal4228]

The ONLY presidential candidate with a realistic path to answering reparations for blacks, natives, latinos, migrants and poor citizens of all cultures, who together have all been robbed and raped for centuries is Mead2020 (0rg)

[@TheVuduYuDu]

@@xbfdx988 Obviously you are NOT a student of even basic American history if you think slavery is the beginning and the end of cause for restitution and repair. You can start with the Black Codes and follow the bouncing ball of massacres, extra judicial killings, and mass displacement of black people and the theft of their property, what we call ethnic cleansing now-a-days, seen during Reconstruction and Jim Crow, the continued extrajudicial killings and targeted terrorist attacks against blacks and their communities during the battle for civil rights, etc. We'll take up the state sanctioned discrimination in housing and access to capital which further led to black disenfranchement another lesson.

[@awareyah6146]

EARS TO HEAR is this verse I dropped look for this comment by ONEKBABY

[@awareyah6146]

Mr. Science That’s FIYAH

[@aminah61]

Many of these comments are astounding and disconcerting. I, now, understand why these sections are selectively removed.

[@donidino3349]

Thanks Ta-Nehisi and Amy. I like and find interesting the inclusion of magic in your first novel, Mr. Coates! :)

[@estebandelgado2002]

Great interview. Look forward to reading his novel.

[@leftcoastgal5134]

Loved his point at 26.47 on reparations rebuttal from McConnell!

[@lesliefountainwilliams5264]

constant psychological torture and trauma is the enslavement

[@lovely-mk4rt]

Brilliant lovely man🕊

[@colonelangus8247]

Chattel slavery exists in the world today, it's not a thing of the past.

[@treneatramuhammad4177]

My Ancestors had been stripped of All knowledge of themselves. First the kidnapping, then arduous savage voyage within the holds of ships, being raped both men-women and children. Our names, religion, culture, language and our minds ripped from us, we could not read-write or learn for 310 years. Our family torn apart. The untold horrors we suffered and continue suffering living under The System of White Supremacy. This is just a pin head of the viciousness inflicted upon Our Precious Ancestors and Us up until this very moment by the caucasian. Tell me where is this happening today?

[@colonelangus8247]

@@treneatramuhammad4177 Saudi Arabia and Libya, thankfully the Islamic State has been recently liberated by President Trump.

[@treneatramuhammad4177]

@@colonelangus8247 you are your ancestors.

[@colonelangus8247]

@@treneatramuhammad4177 I am an individual. My ancestors had their own experiences.

[@treneatramuhammad4177]

@@colonelangus8247 in the caves and hills of europe.

[@bo24.u.98]

Whoever tells the best story or reads the best story wins in life

[@javierpaulino8319]

you guys (who ever uploaded the video) should list the videos she alluded to in the description.

[@Isachanya]

After he finished reading the space deserves a solid pause of reverence. Very powerful!

[@bo24.u.98]

Got it on order. 😄

[@mr.michaelshaughnessy7497]

Just read the book. Highly recommend it. Thank you, Ta-Nehisi, and thank you Amy and Juan.

[@paulas8117]

I read this book and it’s a great book. Slaves aren’t just happening in the US 1000 years ago, it happened all over the World.

[@Rayygunn1]

Speak on it. Who built this country on their backs?

[@oliviamonteque6407]

You still don't get it! So tell me, how many of the other slavaries was "chattel slavary". How many other slavaries where the same race of people for nearly 300 years where subject to this evil, tell me when and to which people. I am sick of people like you! Where have the masters of other slavaries for hundreds of years breed human females like a pigs and sell the children, even from his own seed. Where were the enslaved men sodomize for hundred of years. Is that not pure wickedness and evil? That is why judgement has started. Next time keep your "there were other slavaries" or many other people were slaves. to yourself.

[@indigoblue91]

The Water Dancer would be an incredible movie

[@bo24.u.98]

Can't WAIT to READ. 😄😄😄😄

[@lesliefountainwilliams5264]

This is difficult to even listen too. How am I to read this novel?

[@LheaJLove-zn4fz]

Heeeeeeeey! Are all your dad's books okay? All of my dads Black Classic/african/red/broadside/third went missing back in 2002. His 2 copies of malcolm x speeches went missing and Leroi Jones first book went missing in 2008. Also, how has things been for Black press since Gutenburg project in 2000 and the Internet of Everything?

[@mwiluokolo9559]

Put in the company the venerable Octavia Butler ✊🏿💯🙏🏿

[@cwl2629]

I cannot wait for this book to arrive.

[@aeyshamanning1213]

loved it! my fav book of this year

[@timjustice229]

Brilliant guy.

[@garyrandom7512]

A simple question: who's abolished slavery? Thank you

[@dgmgneco1516]

NEW POWER SOURCE

[@Xavier-uknonada]

Dang

[@witchdoctor3781]

American Myths-#1. C. Columbus discovery of North America.

[@JNUMusic]

No reparations. No vote.

[@TheVuduYuDu]

Please stop with that simplistic bullshit. It's more nuanced than this and you know it. If you don't, than you better go educate yourself on how this shit works.

[@lovely-mk4rt]

Please vote blue. Voting is the most important way to start

[@cherokeecharlie4016]

Fine. The Black vote gave us HRC and looks to give us Joe Biden for the primary..who is it that you are appealing to? The establishment. Its not the game, you just want a bigger cut of the pie. Change the game.

[@JNUMusic]

@@TheVuduYuDu what's more complicated? This is our position. Either Democrats support reparations or they lose.

[@JNUMusic]

@@cherokeecharlie4016 there are black people who support Democrats based on tradition. I expect policy commitments. I'm apart the 10% of the black that Hillary lost last election. We are convincing the rest of black people to stop all support of Democrats until reparations are on the table.

[@shosugino6716]

Black reparations went to black schools. -Milo

[@cherokeecharlie4016]

I am done with Coates . Done. Let Cornell West discuss why.

[@charlierodriguez8489]

This neoliberal clown is still cashing in on disparity? Reparations is like UBI, it won't make a difference without price stabilization. Rent, Healthcare.

[@pietersteenkamp5241]

Reparations will make a difference even without price stabilization and healthcare. People who claim otherwise either lack an economic background or don't actually want to try to help people.

[@charlierodriguez8489]

@D Goshay it's not a critique of heritage, I am critical because this dude had a very public spot when Obama was in office doing the same shit white presidents do, but he was cool with it.

[@charlierodriguez8489]

@@pietersteenkamp5241 Even without price stabilization? One generation might do well with reparations, the ones that follow would not without fundamental changes to the current system as a whole. But yeah, some people are just too selfish to think about everyone else.

[@charlierodriguez8489]

Nice talk though, have fun reminiscing about stories of human nature, while your rents keep raising with healthcare and the only thing going down is your pay.

[@pietersteenkamp5241]

@@charlierodriguez8489 Well if you would understand the benefit to the African American society of having an African man in the whitehouse then you wouldn't try to make such a shallow point and i would be surprised if he wasn't a critic of Obama as so many others were. I guess i could go make sure but since your point is so reactionary and pedantic i will answer some other responses instead.