Ta-Nehisi Coates has been on a roll lately. It’s a shame that Alec Baldwin lost his show on MSNBC because he’s actually a gifted interviewer. The program he did on 2001: A Space Odyssey was one of the coolest things I saw on television this year. But Baldwin isn’t the victim of gay rights “fundamentalists.” He’s responsible for his fate. It’s not appropriate to use gay slurs against anyone who annoys you, and you can’t expect advertisers to tolerate it. I don’t really care about what Baldwin secretly believes or how you want to define the word “bigot.” Mr. Coates’ important contribution to this debate is that he has the ability to convey what it is like to be part of a group (e.g., blacks, Latinos, women, gays) that doesn’t have the luxury of globally dismissing people who hold at least partially ill-feelings towards them.
The ability to “globally” label anyone is a privilege that people who live with a boot on their neck don’t really enjoy. We see people as complicated, because we must, because your tormentor one moment might be your liberator the next. This is not theoretical. In 1863, General James Longstreet led an Army that kidnapped free black people and sold them into slavery. Ten years later, Longstreet was leading black soldiers in a courageous, if doomed, campaign against white terrorists in Louisiana.
And if we are honest with ourselves, as the president would say, we know this isn’t theoretical, because we know ourselves.
He also reminds us, again, of the uncomfortable truth that throughout our country’s history a lot of black boys and girls had fathers who were white supremacists, which is somehow similar to how a gay boy or girl must suffer when their parents are anti-gay.
If you are gay your father or mother could be a “homophobic bigot,” but you might well love him all the same. For a significant period of American history it was common for black people to have fathers who were white supremacists. Some of us hated our fathers. But for many of us, the feeling was somehow more complicated.
Mr. Coates brings a perspective that has been lacking in our political discourse. He’s risen about his West Baltimore roots without ever forgetting where he came from. He can look back with regret on some of the attitudes he was born into without distancing himself from that culture or failing to represent it fairly and honestly.
When he calls Alex Baldwin on his bad behavior, he brings a certain credibility. Coates has unlearned a lot of things, which means he knows that Baldwin doesn’t deserve a pass.
