Ta-Nehisi Coates issues an extraordinary challenge to the president and white progressives (not just Jonathan Chait) to dispose of their conviction “that poor black people are not ‘holding up their end of the bargain,’ or that they are in need of moral instruction.”
At the root of the debate is the question of whether or not black culture in America has some kind of “hangover” from the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow that inhibits their progress, or whether, as Coates believes, the drinking session is still ongoing.
How you come down on that might not seem to matter too much, unless you want to assign some to degree of blame or responsibility on blacks for their current condition.
Coates seems to deny that there are any “pathologies” in black culture resulting from their history of oppression in America. He goes to great lengths to show that black freedmen thirsted for education and a nuclear family life as much or more than their white contemporaries.
His examples are interesting and educational, but ultimately unconvincing. Yet, it’s hard to indict his whole argument because it is so ambiguous. He isn’t, after all, arguing that blacks don’t suffer from the legacy of slavery and segregation. He’s arguing that they were never truly liberated from them. As a result, it’s not fair to lecture them about the importance of family or work ethic, as if they are on equal footing with every one else.
Yet, he seems unwilling to grant that there is any real difference between white and black culture in terms of educational or family expectations. Since he’s making two simultaneous arguments that don’t appear to be compatible, it’s difficult to engage in the debate on his terms.
If his argument is that blacks don’t deserve to be lectured to, he may have succeeded. But he needs to decide whether there is an actual cultural problem or not, regardless of who might be responsible for it.
His original column is a bit clearer on this issue and I’ve already waded in on Paul Ryan’s remarks and the reality of inner city life. I think there is a much bigger distinction between what the president has to say about black culture and what Ryan has to say than Mr. Coates does, but I also think its very important that people try to understand things from Coates’ point of view.
