Is America The Bad Guy? with Ta-Nehisi Coates

We have infinite power to inflict violence at virtually anywhere, at any point.And we kind of do it.And I don't think that's great.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ta -Nehisi Coates is a public intellectual, which is different than a pundit.Public intellectuals are like organic farmers, improving the seeds, tilling the soil, season after season, until they finally harvest that perfect batch of tomatoes and take it to market.Pundits are Benihana chefs.They're chopping up the same fried rice every day for families of five, doing that dumb onion choo -choo train trick over and over again, throwing shit in their hat.It's a volume business.That's why when Ta -Nehisi releases a new book or new article, I pay attention, because it means he has something new to say.

This is someone who took big, heady concepts like structural racism and race as a political construct and made it accessible to a broad audience.He moved the culture.And whenever I read his work, I learn something new.So when his most recent article dropped, titled, The Next Black President for Vanity Fair, I wanted to get him on the show to talk about it.Essentially, it's about the contradiction of a black presidency, which, in his words, owes its power to a movement against racist state violence at home, but seeks an office which has always practiced racist state violence abroad.And he uses the 2024 DNC as a perfect distillation of this.

Kamala Harris and the party supporting her were invoking the names of female civil rights icons like Fannie Lou Hamer and Coretta Scott King while preventing even a single Palestinian American from having their voice heard at the convention.But ironically, 60 years earlier, both of those women were being ostracized by Democrats for speaking out against another case of American -sponsored violence over I'm talking about the Vietnam War.Now, at that time, on the eve of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, speaking out on Vietnam was not popular in the movement.It made Fannie Lou Hamer an enemy of Lyndon B. Johnson, and it got Coretta Scott King in trouble with her husband's own organization.the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.But they did it and spoke out anyway because they saw justice as a single connected struggle and rejected a survivalist democracy that asks you to protect one group at home while destroying another abroad.

So I sat down with Ta -Nehisi Coates to talk about the thesis of his latest piece.

If you want to say that the end point of our dream, of our struggle, The difference between intelligence and wisdom... in American intellectual life that is more overrated than intellect itself.

And we talked about the inherent violence of empire, and whether Americans can shift their country in a different direction.

How long are we going to go on with this, man?Like, is this going to be every presidency after every presidency, and then each one makes some sort of excuse for why we have to do this?I just, I don't want to be part of that project.

And to be clear, I was on my best behavior for this interview.I didn't go on a single tangent about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Cowabunga.It was hard, but I managed.Trump asked RFK Jr. recently why he wasn't doing more to prove a link between vaccines and autism.Trump apparently wants to reduce the overall number of shots recommended for children.

I just think once you're in the Epstein files, you don't get to decide what's best for kids, but that's just me. I read about this story on Ground News, our podcast's favorite independent news platform.Ground News shows you all the publications reporting on a specific story, including breakdowns on the political leanings, typical factuality, and ownings of each news source.It's not about completely eliminating bias, but it does help you be a more informed consumer of the news, factoring in potential biases with your analysis.With this story, I noticed that the right -leaning publications emphasize that autism is on the rise.Subscribe to Ground News today.Use the link in the description or head to groundnews .

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That's groundnews .com to keep media transparent.

In 2015, you released Between the World and Me. I'm going to say this.You don't have to say this.I think you became a rock star in intellectual circles.Again, this is me saying it.I'll take it.But people and specifically people in liberal circles loved you for your moral clarity.

Fast forward approximately nine years in 2024.You write the book, The Message.How did you make sense of the reactions to in 2015, you articulate a pretty clear domestic moral clarity.And in 2024, you articulated a foreign policy moral clarity, but how did you make sense of these disparate reactions?

You know, it's tough for me to answer that.And I'll tell you why.I have given up on trying to understand other people's reaction to me and my work.And I don't want to say that, like, out of anger or out of disgust or anything like that.It's just impossible for me to see.It's very hard when you're in it to understand, like, what is going on around you, especially frankly, given the level of reaction, both to Between the World and Me and to The Message, it's very, very difficult because my experience of those books are almost certainly different than what it looks like to somebody watching the experience.

I mean, I just, I can start with The Message, right?Most people's experience of that book probably begins with my interview on CBS, right?

I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards and the acclaim, took the cover off the book,the publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.

Yeah, that was a contentious interview, but I expected it to be contentious.There's no way in the world I was going to say what I was going to say and then not be contentious.But what I remember about that is not so much the media.I remember that in every city we went to almost, we tried to, we would have these very, very private meetings with the Palestinian American community in those cities.And that is what I remember.And my experience of that is people cooking.

You know what I mean?Like the food, I'm sorry to be that person.The incredible food.You know, God, there is this upside down chicken dish that Palestinians do with the rice.And I know the name of it, but I don't want to mispronounce it.So I'm not going to say it, you know, but like that, that's my memory, like people and like having these deep conversations because Gaza is happening, you know, and being in these intimate spaces that people welcome me into.

And so like, when I think about the message and I think about like the reception, I have this incredible warmth.Like, I actually don't have a contentious memory of it, which is weird.

I don't know.What you're describing is the warmth that you feel from people.Yes.Outside of this kind of, like, media kind of whirlwind that's happening.

Yeah, like, you have to understand, like, there's a thing that happens at distance that people see, right?Yes.But then there's, like, your everyday experience.

Right.

And my everyday experience was that, was one of tremendous, overwhelming gratitude for that book.Like that's what I think about.I don't, I, you know, like I know the fights happened, right.And I know the reviews happened, but like me in terms of what I saw and what I felt was a lot of, Oh my God, thank you.

Can I do this?what many people in the Muslim community specifically felt?Yeah, please.We were talking off camera about this.My father was born 1950, but he very much is a byproduct of what happened in the world post -1948.One of the things my dad has told me repeatedly, and when he read your book, is he just couldn't believe, number one, that you cared, and number two, that someone as prominent as you, the Ta -Nehisi Coates, is basically taking this what was normally almost like a fringe issue that is talked about inside of mosques across America and the world, and you made it a top 40 mainstream record.

Do you understand what I'm saying?That you centered this conversation that was, for the longest time, basically relegated to the fringes and the corners of mosques across the country, essentially.And that outpouring of love was an articulation of, so you saw this.You're seeing this, and you're validating it.Yeah.

And from my perspective, if you believe that I was sincere in what I wrote in Between the World and Me, if you believe that the output of my work was sincere, it necessarily had to lead to this.Now, I get it.People write things all the time that may or may not be sincere.But for me, this was pretty obvious.where I was supposed to go, where I had to go.And after I saw what I saw, what I had to write was, was pretty clear.

I get that.And that's the reaction I've gotten.And again, like, because I, you know, I, I wake up with myself and I go to bed with myself every night, you know, my wife too.But I live with myself.What I'm saying is my experience, my day -to -day experience is like my own conscience, my community, my wife, my kids, my friends.And like, they have certain morals and certain ethics.

that exist in this private world and anybody who could see them.would say, of course he did that.Of course, of course, any of us would.You know, like that would, like, this is what you, this is what is demanded of you.This is what has to happen.And so again, I mean, I think where you started off is, is actually, you know, quite correct.

Because from the perspective of, if you take the metaphor of the rock star, it, it obscures that person's private life.It obscures that person's private existence.They become a symbol of something.But there's a person inside of that.You know what I mean?Yes, yes, yes.

Exactly, exactly.And so that person, you know, is me.And so, yeah, I mean, you know, the message is what, you know, just what had to happen.I enjoyed the reception to the message much more than I enjoyed the reception to Between the World and Me.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I did.

I did.I did.Because Between the World and Me was a surprise.Like, I didn't, like, I had, like, people reaching out to me and trying to get in touch with me and, you know, people upset about the book in ways that I just did not predict.But with the message, I kind of was like, okay, I know what this is in American life.The reaction is going to be crazy.

And I kind of don't care.Like I really, really didn't.What I cared about was those small, intimate, personal human moments.Yes.I mean, so much happened, man.It's like, and I guess I can say this now.

I had at my house, maybe November of 23, I was still working on a book.And, you know, we had a group of Palestinian Americans and black journalists that came together, you know what I mean?In a very, very private space.It's my house.And just had this conversation about what was happening, what was coming, what was going to be.That's what mattered.

Like those moments that never, I mean, they necessarily have to be away from camera.But I think a large part of what's wrong with our discourse right now is there is something that is being modeled as experience as a human experience.involves a lot of people yelling at each other, a lot of conflict.But there are things that happen beneath the surface that if you're living a certain way, like that becomes your experience.It's a lot easier to live that way.

It's a lot easier.I think one of the things that I just wanted to piggyback off of what you're saying is This passage that you wrote in the message has resonated with me.The moment I read it, it stayed with me and I've gone back and revisited it repeatedly.And I think it doesn't just apply to Palestine or current political discourse in America, but it's this idea of walking the land.You're bridging two ideas here.You obviously talk about going to Dakar, but also going to the occupied territories.

But if you don't mind, I'd like to read this passage to you and we can unpack this.You talk about walking the land.You say you have to walk the land.You have to see the elevation for yourself, the color of the soil.You have to discover that the ravine is really a valley and that the stream is in fact a river winding South from a glacier in the mountains.You can't know any of this beforehand.

You can't logic your way through it or retreat to your innate genius.A belief in genius is a large part of what plagues us.And I have found that people widely praise for the power of their intellect, are as likely to illuminate as they are to confound.Genius may or may not help a writer whose job is, above all else, to clarify.

" Yeah, I found that out the hard way.

Have you seen this up close with your quote -unquote intelligent friends trying to logic their way through arguments?Because I feel like what you wrote here is kind of... for lack of a better term, a low -key diss at 99 .9 % of American discourse.

I mean, really.Yeah.No, it is. I have a number of, frankly, I don't have any friends like that, which is fortunate.

That's great.

I certainly have had colleagues like that.And I certainly have had people who are kind of, I guess,certainly there are people in media like that.Let me put it like that.Let me say it.The best of my colleagues weren't like that, but certainly in media, yes.

I mean, I think there is no quality in American intellectual life that is more overrated than intellect itself or what we consider intellect or what we say intellect is.

What do you mean by that?

People are in love with the idea of being able to process things really fast, which is great.That's a good thing.It's a good thing.But being able to sit back with things, being able to consider things, being able to take some time to reach some conclusions, I think we overrate intellect and we underrate wisdom.Why do people confuse intellect with wisdom?I don't know.

I don't know, actually.I don't know.But there's a lot of talk about, you know, genius, right?And like, look, I've told this story before, but I mean, for me, like Palestine is like the great exhibit of this.I was a kid and I've tried to think back on what would have been happening, but, you know, like my parents would watch at that point, like the nightly news, right?And we watched the local news and the nightly news every night.

And I can remember in my house, there was this discourse, which vaguely hinted at the notion that or not hinted at, but articulated that to our eyes, the Israelis were quote unquote white and the Palestinians were black.I don't mean literally.I mean like in like how we arranged our systems of justice, who was oppressed, who was not, who was oppressed.

Power structures.

Power structures.Yes.And race was power for us.Race is power.You know what I mean?So that's not, not literally black and not literally white, but as power.

Right.

And I went out into the world and like, I pretty much rejected that as, as a way of looking at the world.That's too simple.You know what I mean?That's not sophisticated.You know what I mean?

The world is a complex place.

The world is a complex place.

It's a complicated issue.

Yes.And I grew up around people who, you know, like myself, were not particularly well -traveled.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?Had not, you know, seen, you know, much of the world.And what I found was that, in fact, they were well -traveled, actually, which is to say they had, you know, faced a complexity of humanity that people who, quote unquote, were more well -traveled, who were more intellectual, as we recognize it in standard forms, who were smarter as we recognize them in standard forms, but their intellect was ultimately a cover for really, really awful things.And what I eventually discovered was, in fact, the basic morality that I had grown up with and the basic wisdom that I had grown up with actually probably had more to say about the world.You know what I mean?

What do you mean by that?You mean just that the fact that you're saying, I'm coming at this issue with an open heart, and with a level of humane, I'm not trying to intellectualize or justify this, I'm just trying to understand what you're saying.

Yeah, exactly.I think you can use your intellect to illuminate, and I think you can use your intellect to cover.I think you can make people think, you know what I mean, that they don't understand certain things, you can talk really fast, you can breeze over things, you can overcomplicate stuff.I've said this, and I said this to you when we were talking, I could have dropped anybody from the neighborhood that I grew up in, in West Baltimore, on the West Bank, And in two days, they would have understood the lack of justice.Like, they don't need to do, you know, all of this sort of, you know, let me do I, you know, do I have a PhD?As I've said, in Middle East, they didn't need any of that.

They didn't need any of that.

I mean, you've talked about this many times before, but this idea of, and I hear it in both media circles, but academic circles, quote, it's complicated.But you've said this justyou've hit it with that punchline.

I mean, look, there are aspects that are complicated, but not the aspects that they tell you are complicated.You know, like the basic morality of it is not complicated, and rarely is.What you do is often complicated, but the basic morality of what is right and what is wrong, no, I don't think is, you know, I have found it rarely to be complicated.Solutions are, you know what I mean?And I don't, you know what I mean?I don't mean to reduce that.

But is it right to do X, Y, and Z or not?I don't find that to be particularly complicated.Yeah, kinda.I mean, I think I had a vague belief that when bad things happen, it's usually by accident or whatever.In the world, when America does bad things in the world, it's usually by accident, which is bad enough.

How did you, you felt that way, even growing up as a, like, just as a black dude in Baltimore, you felt that way?

I kinda like had a vague, like, sense of that.Yeah, yeah, because even as, you know, you're growing up with your politics, they're like, you don't really know the world.And the projection of American power is so strong.And again, like, I think part of it was, as I was becoming a writer, Again, I'm like, well, you know what I mean?Like, there's an innate skepticism that I think all Black people have of how America acts in the world.But what the hell you know?

You've never been to Iraq.What do you know?You know what I mean?Like, that's how you kind of feel about it.And then you get out in the world and you see, like, well, actually, the innate skepticism was correct.No, we do, with great intention, very bad things around the world and have historically.

And I probably could not have told you that with that kind of confidence, you know, until, you know, the past, you know, I don't know, two or three years, not with the level of confidence and force that I feel it now.

So the reason why I love your work so much, and I think the reason why it's created at timesthese deep discussions between people is there's there's a level of sincerity and honesty that I think people feel in your work, which is really beautiful.But there's this clip that I revisit all the time that is from one of America's great liars telling the truth.

Will I get along with him?I have no idea.

He's a killer.

Look, Putin's a killer.A lot of killers.We get a lot of killers.Why do you think our country is so innocent?How do you make sense of this clip?

You know, Trump is he's vulgar, right?And I mean, in the completest sense of the word.Like, I mean, the most complete sense of what he.

But the media made a hullabaloo about how dare he say this?How dare he make this false equivalency?

Well, I think it goes back to the question you were just asking.Right.Like that notion.You know, we have good intentions, but sometimes we make mistakes like that is the narrative that, you know, we generally have told ourselves, I mean, both about domestic history and, you know, our global, our history abroad also.And I think that's what the story has been.And Trump has just dispensed with it.

You know, he's just completely, completely dispensed with it.His actions abroad are not necessarily so different, you know, necessarily, you know, this is not the first dumb war, you know, certainly not, you know, Iraq was certainly, you know, another one, but, you know, the lack of a need to dress it, you know, in this kind of, hey, we actually are the good guys here.Yeah.That's like, you know, like occasionally he'll do it, but he has no commitment to it at all.Like none.

Right.So you believe we can go in and take the oil.We should have taken the oil.They have among the largest oil reserves in the world.If it were up to me, I'd take the oil.I'd keep the oil.

I would make plenty of money.

You know, um, and yes.

But, but don't you see,the media's reaction to it and specifically even liberal media, how could he, how could he say that?

Yeah, they believe it.Like, I mean, I, and look, I, you know, I, um, I think most of us sincerely believe it too.Like, I don't even know that folks are lying, you know?Um, I think there is a way in which you can tell yourself or have a certain kind of vocabulary and I've seen it now and you say it over and over and over and over again and you just come to believe it or the things you just accept about the world.

Right.

You know what I mean?And you just come, particularly if certain things about your life become dependent on those ideas.And you just kind of accept them.And so the idea that somebody would just sort of say things.I also don't think we understand even now, like less so maybe now than it was 20 years ago, but how much constraint there is around what is said and what is not said.And so that can very, very easily become your world.

What do you mean by that?Well, I'll take it out of my own experience.When Barack Obama first started running for president, There were very, very few black journalists actually writing about him at major publications.And if you look at how he was talked about at the time, you can see.Like, you can tell it.Like, I recall, for instance, people were confused by the fact that he had a white mother, and he would, you know, so forcefully call himself Black.

You know what I mean?Like, they didn't understand why anybody had done that.And you can tell that these were people who had no experience with, like, how biraciality actually works in the Black community.Like, it was evident that that was the case.You know what I mean?And then, you know, a friend of mine, Nicole Hannah -Jones, who was writing about this, said very clearly, you know, she's biracial.

She, you know, refers to herself in ways she would never call herself biracial, because What she would tell you is, look, I have two choices in this world about how I can identify, even though my mom is white.I can be black, or I can be biracial.I can never be white.These things are not equal.These things are not equal.And folks writing about Barack, that had never occurred to them.

You understand what I'm saying?That is a very real, lived reality.punchline.That is exactly it.

And you have to have had conversations, you know, in your community about that.

There is no option C here.

Right, right, right.And you have had to have reflected about that, right?Writing and that sort of observation is not so different than until very recently, because I think this is changing a little bit, what the conversation around Israel -Palestine is.And that's probably, I would argue what our conversation about the world is, period.

Well, let's talk about that moment you had in the CBS interview.Just that idea of, do states have a right to exist?

I think the question is central and key.If Israel has a right to exist, and if your answer is no, then I guess the question becomes, why do the Palestinians have a right to exist?Why do 20 different Muslim countries have a right to exist?

My answer is that no country in this world establishes its ability to exist through rights.countries established their ability to exist through force, as America did.

We talk about good guys and bad guys, good states and bad states.Ta -Nehisi, I just wanted to ask you, because I've struggled with this, can a state behave morally?

Well, let me back up a little bit and say, there are probably not good states, and probably the construction of a state is amoral.Certainly, you probably can maybe assemble enough moral force you know, among a group of people that a state is, you know, constructed to protect, to make the state act morally sometimes.But I think it's hard.I think it's hard.I think states are designed to protect the interests of, you know, in the best case, the majority of people that the state alleges to represent.Sometimes that's not even true.

Oftentimes that's not even true.

I mean, the closest analogy that I found was, and it's not mapping perfectly, which is for me, I found,are almost like a business.Yeah, I mean, I think that's about right.And a business can be ran by some great owners.You can have a great manager that's well -intentioned and wants to give you a pay bump.

But the business is designed to make profit.Exactly.That's the structure.Yeah.That's the structure.And so I think that's actually a great example, because I think enough times, Like, if you and I sit in this room and we say to each other over and over again, Israel has the right to exist.

Israel has the right to defend itself.And whatever, you know, talking points there would be around that.And we never consider questions outside this room.We can actually convince ourselves that that is the universe of questions and possibilities.Not to mention if we have a group of people in there, that is the dialogue that they have with themselves.And they never step outside the room where questions like, why are we concerned about the rights of states and not the rights of people exist?

you never ask that question because you're in the room, right?And I will tell you the best thing about going over there is that there was a whole universe of other questions to be asked, you know?And so when I came back and I was in that interview, I actually had great difficulty for that question because I was like, wow, this is totally irrelevant to me.Like, I am not concerned with states.You know what I mean?I'm concerned with people.

And to the extent that states can protect, can ensure the health, can ensure the welfare of people, Yes, I'm in favor.To the extent that they can ensure the equal treatment of peoples, yes, I'm in favor.To the extent that they cannot, I don't care.The state is a tool.And that's it.People and life is what matters to me. I feel like that about all states.

It's not a particular thing.But I just think the world of journalism is probably more closed off.I thought it was.And I did not know that.That's been a revelation for me, you know, from over the past four or five years or so.

I want to talk about your latest Vanity Fair piece.It's called The Next Black President.One of the things you grapple with is the paradox of the presidency.I really love this quote.Let's take a look at it.A black presidency is a contradiction.

It owes its power to a movement against racial state violence at home.but seeks an office which has always practiced racist state violence abroad.Do you feel like Barack Obama could have pursued a more moral foreign policy as president?Or was he too constrained by what the quote unquote duty of what the American presidency is?

I think absolutely.He absolutely could have pursued a more moral foreign policy.I mean, he says this himself, Libya, you know what I mean?Like that's the obvious one, you know?

Or Yemen, for me, I was like, did he have to use cluster bombs?

No, I mean, I think that's, look, I just, I don't, there are people in this world who will tell you, look, there is no version of this in which we don't do this kind of violence to people.If there's a difference between who I was around the time of Between the World and Me and who I am now, I just don't extend that level of trust to people when they say those things anymore.It's not that I can sit here and tell you why that's not true, but I guess I just feel like they aren't necessarily to be believed.

Is it because you feel the paradox of power and institutions?

Of like, I know you're saying that, but - It's because I've just talked to too many people that live under the weight of it.I have much more contact now than I did before with people who live under the weight of it.And I just, I cannot accept it.There's no other way.I just, I can't accept it.There's no other way except, you know, every now and then at some point,

wedding party gets bombed.I don't, I don't accept that.I don't accept that.I don't want to live in that world.I don't want to be part of, I don't want to be a writer who accepts that.I don't want to be a writer who goes around justifying that.

You mean a writer that accepts America's collateral damage.

You're like, I don't want to.I won't accept that.I won't accept that.It's not, and it's not my job as a writer to accept that.Now, it may be true that On some level, if you aspire to be president of the United States, you have to, you know, accept some of that.That might theoretically be true.

But my job is not to make your job easier.Like, my job is not to, you know what I mean, endorse, you know, your moral failings.Even if I understand how they happened or why they happened, like, what good am I?Then I'm just kind of an operative, you know, for the state.Like, I'm not writing anymore at that point.There are enough people who are going to do that.

That's not my job.

Are you basically saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, you're almost saying, look, there is a group of people within that power structure that will always co -sign, hey, it has to be this way.Or hey, our hands are going to get dirty every once in a while.

Let me make it easier too.Let me make sure I'm being as rigorous as I possibly can on this.There are people who in 1830, very intelligent people would have said, we cannot abolish slavery.If we abolish slavery, this country will collapse.There will be chaos.God knows what will happen.

Logically, like there's an argument for what they're saying.I would never argue that.I would never argue that because what I would argue is slavery is so immoral that you just can't sit here.Like you just, there's just no option to pursue this path.You know, it's just so, it's that wrong.And I guess like when you highlight Yemen, as you just did, what I think about is not just Barack Obama.

I think about that for what, 75 years?Like how long are we going to make war in the Middle East?How long are we going to do this?Like, how long?Like, I think about, like, you know, Iran all the time.It's like, I don't think, and I don't mean this in any sort of disrespectful way because people have lives and they have things they have to do, but I don't think people understand, like, between Iraq and Iran, like, how much war making we've done over there.

Like, how violent our presence has been over there and how, you know, in certain cases, how anti -democratic our presence has actually been.How long are we going to go on with this, man?Like, is this going to be every presidency after every presidency?And then each one makes some sort of excuse for why we have to do this?I just, I don't want to be part of that project.

You articulate that frustration in this next quote.You say, for reasons moral, pragmatic, and perhaps mostly ancestral, the next black presidency will have to think bigger.To its list of adversaries, which include a renewed white supremacy, a rapacious billionaire class, and energetic Christian nationalism, it must add another, perhaps more formidable than them all.Yeah.

And I guess, and maybe I'm being presumptuous here, I don't want my struggle and my people, and that's the ancestral part is, I don't want them tied to this.And I guess one of the things that motivated me writing that piece was not just, you know, necessarily, you know, what I saw at the DNC with Kamala Harris, but it is the fact that we had Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Barack Obama, Susan Rice, And then Kamala Harris, Linda Thomas -Greenfield, which you're seeing is a list of African -Americans who actually only exist in those spaces because of the Black freedom struggle itself.That's the whole reason they're there, right?None of them would be there if not for the sacrifices of Martin Luther King, if not for the sacrifices of Coretta Scott King, if not for the sacrifices of Fannie Lou Hamer.What did they say we were supposed to do?Who did they imagine us being once we got into those roles?

And I don't think they imagined us, in fact, I know because they said it, as people that would justify dropping bombs on people who are weaker than us.That just, to me, is a very, very clear thing.And I guess I feel like, because it's not honestly, I struggled with this.I struggled with where we started this interview, this idea that as a writer, I would have a certain status.And then I got to a point of acceptance where I realized, okay, well, this is not up to me, you know?So, if I have the mic, if this is what it's going to be, as loudly as I possibly can say, I want to say that we are not down with this, that you do not, you know, represent all of us.

Yes, you represent some of us, you know what I mean?But you do not represent all of us, and you certainly don't represent the best of us, and we need you to represent the best of us.I want you to represent the best of us, you know?I don't believe that a struggle with its roots against human enslavement ends like this.Like I just can't, maybe it does.Maybe I'm wrong, like maybe it does, but I don't, I don't, I won't, I won't personally accept that.

I won't.

When we talk about empire, and I don't want to do it the way people talk about it on the internet.I'm not talking about Star Wars empire, Dune empire, Empire on Fox.What is your definition of what this word capital E Empire means?

To me, it means the fact that we have, and I don't have the number on me right now, but we have X number.I don't know if it's 400, 500 military bases around the world.And I think if you combine the forward military bases outside of the United States of every other country, you would probably not get above like 20.We have infinite power to inflict violence.at virtually anywhere at any point.And we kind of do it.

And I don't think that's great, you know?We find reasons to do it.you know, we tell ourselves we're being thoughtful about it, but I just, I just, I don't think that's great.

I felt the same way.I recently had Senator Mark Kelly on the show, um, former astronaut, Navy pilot, but he talked about this idea of America's positioning in the world.There was a moment in the interview that stuck with me. I haven't been able to articulate how exactly I feel about it, but I'd love to share it with you because it's very similar to what you're talking about right now.Let's take a look.

Since world war two.So for 80 years, we have, been very fortunate that we get to set a lot of the conditions.And I strongly believe that we have done a lot of positive things in the world.We've supported other countries.We've stopped famine.Look what George W. Bush did with PEPFAR.

We've saved people's lives.One of the benefits we also get from being the leader of the free world, NATO, our Asian allies, allies in the Gulf, is we have benefited economically from having that as the conditions.Why would you want to give that up?

So there's a great film soundtrack to a coup d 'etat by a Belgian filmmaker that everybody should see. It's about the overthrow of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. And it is one thing to watch that film, which is incredible. It's about America's complicity, and to a certain extent, how it used Black American artists to conceal that. It is one thing to watch that film and be horrified. It is another thing to meet people for whom Patrice Lumumba is not a symbol. It was their parents' elected leader, and he was overthrown.killed in the worst possible way.It is one thing to theoretically hear about how bad, you know, war in Iraq was.It is another thing to actually know people.And so, like, that's a nice story.You know, that's a nice story.

But can I actually tell that story?to the people who have lived under our weight.Can I tell that story to the people that lived under Pinochet?Can I tell that story to the people that are being choked off in Cuba right now?Can I say that?

You know?The part that stuck with me that was a bit chilling was we've been very fortunate that we get to set a lot of those conditions.But I think a key part of that sentence that was missing was as a byproduct of violence or the threat of violence.

That's right.There's no nonviolent way that that happens.There's no non -violent way to die.A lot of people die.A lot of people get killed.And we don't even...

It's so much so that it escapes us.And I don't want to stand up here and feel like I'm preaching to people.It has escaped me. I have not always been cognizant of just the extent to which, you know, just going, like the hard thing about writing that article on Kamala Harris, like there's a section in there where you, you know, I go through like all of the 20th century violence that we've done.And like boiling it down was actually hard.It's actually extremely, extremely difficult.

Just to meet the word count.

It's so much.I mean, just in the 20th century.I mean, you just start from Eisenhower to, it is so much from Eisenhower just to Obama.It is so much.

Well, how did you feel when Kamala Harris was on stage at the DNC and she said, we have the most lethal fighting force in the world?

As command chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.

Not great.Not great.And, um, let me, let me give the other side of that before I give the other side of that is this is a black woman who is carrying all the weight that black women carry in this country.I'm aspiring to lead the country.with all the doubts and all the skepticism and all the racism and all of the misogyny.So I understand how you end up having to make that statement or feeling like you have to make that statement.

I get it.And yet and still, when she said that I was actually outside and I was outside with a group of uncommitted delegates who at that moment were in the midst of a sit -in because they had been denied the right to speak and address the convention.They had not been an Arab American speaker since 1988.And so, like, the people I was with, like, the question you have to ask is lethal military or lethal armed forces, who's on the other side of that, right?Because it's not just lethal and then just held here, right?Who historically has been on the other side of that?

And so, here I am outside with people, you know what I mean, whose families are at that very moment on the other side of it, by the way, you know?And so, I didn't feel great.And I have to like really be at pains to say this, right?Because I think, not I think, I know Kamala Harris represents the fruition, the hopes and dreams, you know, of a lot of black women, you know, who have struggled mightily in this country.And I really, really want to be maybe even more than, you know, respectful of Kamala Harris herself.I want to be respectful of the struggle that made her possible.

I don't want to be disrespectful of her, but I'm saying, like, I have just tremendous respect and admiration for the struggle and yet, and for the weight, you know what I mean?that was put on her.And yet, look, I get it, it's heavy, it's heavy, but why are we here?You know, are we here to just act like white men have acted every time before?And if so, like, what am I, I don't know what I'm doing.

Well, I've struggled with this as well because I'm a child of immigrants, you're a black American, your history, your roots is this country.I get asked this all the time.And I don't know what the answer is.What is our American dream, but what is, That moment with Kamala Harris on stage, she represents the confluence of the struggle at the highest echelon.What is the Black American dream?What is it?

I'm not the person to ask that anymore.I can tell you what the struggle means to me.Sure.And the struggle means to me not just that we would get the boot off our necks, but that we would destroy the boot, that this would not happen to other people.And I don't think I'm out on a limb on that.Like, I think that's always been the con, the content of our struggle has always been that it's been bigger than us.

That's been the fact of it.You know, it is not the case that the civil rights movement just benefited black Americans themselves.It is not the case that Dr. Martin Luther King, you know, when he saw what was going on in Vietnam said, well, I just need to shut up and just, you know, make sure my people were okay.It is not the case that Fannie Lou Hamer was only concerned about Mississippi.It's not the case that W .E .

B.Du Bois was not concerned about the world.It is not the case that James Baldwin, you know, went over to Israel and was like, well, I can't talk about this because I'm only concerned about my people.What I'm trying to say is the best of us have always, always been concerned, you know, beyond ourselves, you know?And so I don't really know how to be any different.And, you know,

extent that I say that that is the weight that she has to carry, if you want to say that the end point of our dream, of our struggle, is simply to get us in positions of power to integrate us into the machine and to not change the machine, then don't talk about Fannie Lou Hamer.Don't talk about Dr. Martin Luther King.Because that wasn't what their lives were about.You know what I mean?If this is just mere, you know, pragmatic interest group struggle, and that's it.If it's a narrow kind of nationalism, if that's all we're concerned about, then, you know what I mean?

Those are the, you know, the struggles and the peoples that we should model ourselves after.But that's not my struggle.That's not my fight.

I've always had, man, I've always had deep empathy for people, specifically in immigrant communities, because you spend your whole life, you see your parents, family members, aunties, uncles, just playing survival ball.Not to jump metaphors, make it about sports, but you know how when you're just on defense, it's just survival.We're just trying to get to the end of the game.So the very idea of thinking about systems, changing systems and changing systems abroad is a fantasy.It's inconceivable.That's the only way I've been able to make sense of all of the talk about Kamala Harris' shortcomings in regards to this issue.

Yeah, and I think that's true.Look, I think that's true.

I mean, I - For a lot of black voters, people that I'm - Yes.Friends of mine - Yes.That are disregarding the Gaza issue.

That's right, that's right.

They see so much of, do you understand for decades we were playing survival ball, and now you want her to completely change the game?

Right, yes.Yes, I do.Yes, and I, yes, I do.I do.And I'll say two things.One thing, there is one issue, which is your vote, right?

Like, that's one issue.okay?But whether you vote for her and whether you supported her to become president, that is not therefore a license to just join the cheering section and to never have to engage with the politics of the world and the politics of what the presidency does itself.In other words, you can be a voter, but you don't have to be a fan.You know what I mean?And even as a fan, you know what I mean?

You don't have to, you know, cheerlead everything that happens after that.I feel that one of the unfortunate things that happens, because of maybe the nature of elections and the way media coverage works, is we think that politics is strictly a matter of who you cast your vote for.And I just reject that.You know what I mean?So you can have a political strategy.And I guess, you know, this was my argument myself, was that, look, the world's a worse place with Trump as president.

And I felt that.And I believed that at the time.You know what I mean?But I don't accept that because I believe that and think that, and that my vote will reflect that, that that means that I have to cosign everything, you know, that the person I'm voting for does.Like, I don't, I don't, I don't, and that I can't like loudly say this is wrong.

How did you make sense and what do you make of the people that blame those undecided voters or those voters who decided to not vote for Harris because of Gaza?They're, you hear they get blamed for the outcome of the election.

Again, I think I'm just going back to something that we have said in this interview.If you are someone who can go before a family who has to take calls to hear about their aunts, their cousins, their grandmothers bombed and buried under rubble and killed, and tell them, you now have to vote for a member of the administration,is making that possible, that is literally killing your family, then that's you.That's not me.And that's not who I want to be.And what I would submit to you is that at the moment that you are asking people who are actively enduring a genocide to support a member of the administration that is making that genocide possible, you're telling them that it all depends on them.

And you can't promise them that when that person comes in, that that person is going to stop killing their family.If that's what your struggle hinged on, then I question the nature, and I question the justice of your entire project.Because the moment we are addressing people like that, you've lost something.I feel like you kind of have lost the plot.And I get it.You get so deep into things that you can't see.

But one of the things we forget, and I'm sorry I get animated about this, but you see, people have done that to us before, and we didn't like it.This is not new to us.Franklin Delano Roosevelt comes in, wants to have a new deal that's going to build the American middle class, is going to have all of these great programs.But what is the cost?The cost is that for those of us who live in northern cities, our brothers and sisters who are in the South are going to be excluded.They're going to be excluded from Social Security, going to be excluded from unemployment.

Us ourselves, we will not be able to take advantage of those housing programs.Were we down with that?Well, we like, oh, well, I guess we'll just have to pay the price.No, we weren't.And I know, because I wrote about it, and I know what people said about it.We were not with that.

We were not, oh, well, I guess, you know, it's for the greater good, and we'll get out.No, we loudly opposed that.And so we would then turn around and tell a group of people that are being wiped out, whose families are being wiped out, that they have to support it, when we ourselves didn't do it.You know what I'm saying?Like, Frederick Douglass loudly, loudly opposed Abraham Lincoln.You know what I mean?

He loudly, loudly opposed.He pushed the whole time.And so there's an element.I don't want to say hypocrisy because I understand how it happens.I don't think it's that deliberate.I don't think it's that opportunistic.

I think people really are suffering.And I think that's a very, very real thing, and I understand it.But look, me, as a guy that wrote the case for reparations, as a guy that actually lived in that, as a guy who talked to people who suffered, under that new deal and were excluded from it and paid for it and suffered the consequence.The lesson for me is that if we get access to any sort of power, we can't do what was done to us.We need to know this.We need to know this.

I don't know why that's such a revolutionary idea.The idea that one person's collateral damage can be someone else's red line.This is my red line.This is affecting people that I know.This is affecting family members.

I can't just - I think it's because the stakes were so high.And my sympathetic part of it is, yeah, I get it.When Kamala Harris and all of them are saying, look, you are countenancing the end of democracy.It's not like I thought they were exaggerating.You know what I mean?The stakes really were the stakes.

It is bad.It's very, very bad.And so I get how that disrupts your ability to think beyond that.

But the thing that I can't shake is that within three very short years, the Overton window on this issue has changed.So this idea, Ta -Nehisi, that you're talking about, I see it in your writing, and it's what I love about your writing.And it's why, to me, you're beyond a writer.You're also an artist.And the role of the artist is to question, hey, does it have to be this way?That's what's in great music.

It's whether it's great film or art.It's just, hey, is this gravity?Do I have to accept this as gravity?And my only pushback to thatis you have now seen something like AIPAC become, which was a normal thing to be accepted within the Democratic Party.It is now as divisive as the NRA.

Right.

And that's only a byproduct of people saying, wait a second, does it have to be this way?

Right.Right.I think that's right.But when people do that, it is largely inconvenient.I met with a group of people who weren't part of the protests at Columbia, but they were, I should say, advisors, elder advisors.And they were so beat down and disappointed by some of the stuff that happened.

And they were like, look, we failed.Our movement failed.I was like, I'm not sure it did.If the judgment of the movement is, how many universities can we get to divest of the state that's practicing apartheid?Well, yeah.Yeah.

I actually think the fact that this is central right now in the Democratic Party's politics, I don't think you can separate it from the protest movement.I don't think it would be there if not for that.I don't know that Zora Mandani would even be mayor if not for that.And so I get it was painful.I get it was inconvenient.I get that some folks said some things that they should not have said and put things in ways that we wish they had not.

But again, a lot of this is because people have this kind of halcyon, overly romantic view of what the civil rights movement was.Like, like it wasn't messy.Like people didn't say and do crazy things then.Like protest is really just, you know, historically.What do you mean, what do you mean by messy?

Like, what do you, what do you mean specifically by that?Like the wins and losses aren't clean or?

Well, that people say things that are inconvenient and do things that are inconvenient and do things that people, I mean, it's honestly, it's in that essay, you know, like when Coretta Scott King comes out,against the Vietnam War in 1964, 65, I think, Lyndon B. Johnson at that moment is in the process of being a revolutionary president from the perspective of civil rights, which he did was extremely inconvenient.And some would even argue impractical, tactically unwise.Not smart?

Radical.

Well, actually, I would be even like radical is a complimentary way of saying it.I'm saying like, look, from a pragmatist perspective, what the fuck are you doing?Like you're hurting us.Like you are actually injuring our struggle right now.Do you know how long we have been fighting to get equal rights under the law for all of us?We can deal with this afterwards.

Carrasco, I can't say nah, nah.Nah.And so what I'm trying to say is people weren't happy about that.That was extremely divisive.You know what I mean?When King does it, you know, in 68, it is extremely, extremely, people are mad at him for doing that.

And I think what happens is now, you know, we sit back and we look at that and we say, wow, that was, that was great, you know, courage as though it was not messy at the time, you know, as though it was somehow popular at the time, even within the movement, you know, that was actively participating.

I mean, I think we are living through a messy moment, but Do you feel after those wins in the New York primary by the candidates who spoke out on Gaza, do you think that that changes the Democratic Party's calculation in the future at all?

Yeah, it has to.I mean, it just has to.It doesn't doesn't mean that it's the end.It doesn't mean, you know, you know, that that that, you know, there's not still a fight to be waged.But yeah, it is. I mean, I am of the time.I remember it wasn't that long ago that you just didn't even talk about this.

It just didn't come up.I mean, it kind of didn't come up in 24, except among, you know, the delegates.Right.You know, so no, I think it's an incalculable change, and I think the problem is actually the simplicity of it.Look, it's a very, very easyquestion.

Do you think your tax dollars...Let's include everything that happened on October 7th, right?Let's include all of it.Let's include how horrified all of us were by the war crimes and everything.Do you think that means that your tax dollars should go to bombs being dropped?Yes or no?

Yes or no, do you think that your tax dollars should go to enforcing a system, you know, in which just taking the West Bank and Gaza, you know, you were talking about like the longest occupation, you know, that we've endured.Like, do you think that's okay?Do you think it's okay for, you know, Palestinians on the West Bank to go through one, you know, justice system and Israeli settlers there to go through another?Is that okay?Yes or no?Yes or no?

Because that is the fact of it.And the problem, I think, and not an unsolvable problem.For those who think, yes, it's fine, it's like, you have to muddy the issue.You have to like throw all, but when the issue is clarified, it becomes extremely difficult to defend, man.It's really, really, it's actually really, really hard to defend.It doesn't mean it won't be defended, but it's not easy.

As we enter the midterms, these four things are gonna get brought up, specifically in minority communities, in the black community, and let's call it the Democratic Party, larger establishment, but I'd love your analysis on this.So, you know, when all the ICE stuff was happening, I would hear stuff like, oh, ICE is detaining people.They're grabbing people like the Gestapo.Some people are even dying.That's their issue.It's not my issue.

That's one bucket.The other bucket you hear, and this will come up is, hey, look, neither party has done anything for me.Therefore,I'm gonna stay my ass home.And number four, by staying my ass home and abstaining from voting, that is my way of punishing them.I've never found a clean way to answer all of that, but I've seen family members, friends, you know what I'm saying?

Some version of this has always existed in the ether.I understand where it's coming from.As someone who, acknowledges both the shittiness of the system, but the power of the individual.What would you say to those people?

Well, first of all, the idea that it's not your problem is a fallacy.You're dead wrong.When those Blackhawk helicopters, you know, on the south side of Chicago brought ICE, you know, folks into those buildings and they separated people by race, suddenly it was your problem.It was a problem.It is not the case that imperial violence remains imperial.It's just not.

I hate even using those terms because it makes it sound like abstract.What I'm saying is when you normalize violence against people, it becomes easier to do violence against people, particularly against people that you've always done violence to.So that's the first thing.The second thing is there is not historically been, and I'm just speaking practically, because of the way race works in America, Black immigrant communities have not, over generations, had the ability to separate themselves from Black people.What I'm trying to say is, you think you won't get mistaken for somebody who's Somali -American?You really feel that's safe?

No, I don't think any Black person actually does.I think we know how this works.And so you think the kind of racist caricatures that Donald Trump and his administrations are making about that Black community, you think it's not going to spread to you?You think it's a mistake to do that?so much on that?You think that has nothing to do with you?

I actually know very few black people who would say, no, it doesn't.I think people get that.I don't think I'm lecturing anybody about that.So that's the first thing.The second thing is, look, this idea of both parties have screwed me over, they're not your friends.They're not even, I mean, even allies takes it too far.

You know what I mean?They're tools.The tools, and your job is to figure out what tool, you know, in this particular moment reduces the most harm against me and my fellow citizens.That's it.That's the only question.That's the question.

You know what I mean?And I think that's a much easier question to answer when you accept that your politics is not just your vote.Your vote is a tool.You know what I mean?Voting is, you know, it's civic hygiene.It's brushing your teeth.

You know what I mean?It's not enough.You know what I mean?You don't just brush your teeth.Oh, I'm done for the day.I brush my teeth.

I'm good.I don't have to do anything else.I took out the trash.I don't have to do anything else.Well, yeah, you got to brush your teeth.You got to take out the trash.

It's not sufficient.It's the baseline.It's the baseline, man.It's the baseline.It's the baseline.But we like, I don't know, man.

We think of like these elections like it's the Super Bowl or something.It's not.It's a singular tool.You know what I mean?That you need to use.

And you're a fool if you don't.Yeah, you're right.It's more pragmatic DMV vibes than it is like, dun, dun, dun, dun.No, it's not that.It's not that.Get over yourself.

Like, go vote and then go do something else.You know what I mean?Like, get over yourself.So that's the second thing, you know, I would say.And the notion that you're punishing people, I mean, probably not, you know?Probably not.

You know, these people who are running for office, they're going to be momentarily punished.but they're going to collect their speaking fees and they're going to be fine.The people that are going to suffer are going to be people around you.And if you can divorce yourself from the notion that your voting is necessarily a tribal statement, that your voting is like whether you like Beyonce or not, you know what I mean?Or whether you like, you know what I mean?Or whether you're rooting for a football team, like whether you like the Giants or the 49ers.

It's not that.These people are not your friends.They're not your friends.You're not going to hang out with them.

What is your relationship and analysis with America's relationship with celebrity?That Jay will solve it.Will Smith will solve it.My favorite soccer player can do...Do you know what I mean?

Yeah.

I mean, LeBron didn't do this.You know, why didn't he?And it falls under this bucket of the power of celebrity, but also its impotence.How do you make sense of it?

I think these people command tremendous amounts of attention.I think, I guess, what celebrity gives you gives the ability to command tremendous amounts of attention.And we probably wish that people's morality was commensurate to the amount of attention that they commanded.But that's, I think, will probably never happen.It's deeply unnatural, as a friend of mine once said, to have that many people looking at you and analyzing your every move.I don't know how any of those folks feel, but I'll tell you, I am 0 .00001 % as famous as any of the people you named, and I don't love it.

I don't love it at all.It is a deeply unnatural thingIf you are happy in your life, relatively, if you like your family, if you like your friends, if you like, you know, just being a human being, existing in the world, don't ever become famous.Ever, ever.Because it's a tremendously, you know, disruptive, you know, experience.And I spent a lot of time where that was like, that was like really upsetting to me, like around between the world and me, it was just - What part was upsetting for you?

Oh man, it was everything.I mean, everything except a lot of people reading the books.you know, everything else was, there was a lot of debate around like, what my role was and whether I was good or bad.And a lot of, you know, white people listen to Ta -Nehisi and like Ta -Nehisi and what does that mean?And I just, and then, you know, internally, you know, like, you know, certainly among a community of black authors, there was like, okay, well, Ta -Nehisi is getting this amount of attention, you know, is that obscuring other black authors?All of this shit, man.

And I was like, you know, I just want to fucking write.Like, I just came here to do a job.Like all of this other stuff, I can't, like, I don't really have control over, you know?

And - Cultural zeitgeist, what this means, what it doesn't mean.

I don't know why this is happening.Like, I didn't, you know, and I don't want to say I don't want it to happen because I did want the books to go.I wanted people to read.Everybody wants that, you know, I want people to read.But, you know, everything that came out that was larger than that, I did not particularly enjoy.And, but at a certain point, and I don't know how I got here, maybe it's just, you know, years happened.

I just, you know, accepted that shit ain't up to me.It's kind of none of my business, you know?Like it really is none of my business.

Yeah.I mean, that takes a lot of self -discipline, man. I don't know how you're able to be in your own body and then -It's a practice.

It's a complete, it's a practice.And I am, it's particularly when I'm under stress, like I fail it, you know?But it is a constant discipline.The best thing about the message is that probably was the most disciplined I was.Like I had no real idea of what was happening outside, you know, when that book was coming out.You know, I had some sense of it afterwards, but I was really good, particularly during the book tour, about preserving that space.

And it was the happiest I ever was.you know, as a, as a writer, you know, with some, you know, sort of public profile.

Yeah, that's beautiful to hear.

It was great, but you know what was interesting?I think the sheer level of the struggle, because I knew like how out there the Palestine chapter was going to be, and I knew how ferocious the reaction was going to be to it.I was like, there's no possible way I can listen to this.It's going to destroy my mental health.I did a show and one of the reviews was actively read to me and I had not seen a review.

Compact Magazine published a review with the incendiary title, Why Ta -Nehisi Coates Hates Israel.Helen Andrews writes in part, quote, the problem with Israel is that it shames him.How can it be that the Jews carved their Israel out of the desert and yet no place in Africa, least of all Liberia, remotely resembles Wakanda?Andrews goes on to say Jewish people, quote, overcame the hostility of the world to succeed where Garvey and Co failed.That and not any resemblance to Jim Crow is the reason Coates hates Israel so bitterly.with me now to discuss all of this and more is Ta -Nehisi Coates, author of The Message.

So, wow, that was really racist.It was good to not know.Right.Like, it was like, you should, I think, like, like, there, one of the things I've figured out is that all information is not information, you know?Like, it's some things you shouldn't know.

Yeah, noise versus signal.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.And what people think of you is probably a good thing for you not to know.

Yeah, stay off Reddit, stay off Reddit.How have you maintained your level of, this is our first time meeting, but even when we were chatting off camera, what I'm surmising and what I'm feeling from you is you have still maintained your openness to the world.How have you maintained that and not closed yourself off?

I don't know.I mean, I'm genuinely curious about people.My baseline is as a journalist, and I got into journalism because I was curious about people.I like hearing about people.I like hearing about your wife and your father -in -law.I like hearing about what it means to be from a Muslim family in India, given what's happening with India.

That is interesting to me.It's actually quite fascinating to me.And I guess perhaps it is even more fascinating to me as I go through my own journey and understand myself as part of a broader thing in the world.I'm literally interested in it.

Like it's not fake, it's not even - No, no, no, but that's what I'm saying.So for example, that moment, and I know you have felt this as a black person in this country, hey, he's not ready for the convo, so don't have the convo.Do you understand what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah.No, I'm with the shit.

He's not ready for the convo, so don't have the convo.Your teacher doesn't want that?It's cool.How you doing, man?Nice.Do you see what I'm saying?

You separate those two things.You don't want to have the convo, so we don't have to have the convo.And the fact that you've kept yourself that open to all those convos is a really beautiful thing, man, and inspiring to me.So I just want to say thank you.

You know what it is, though?I think part of it is in America here, because of what the force of anti -Blackness is here in America, you understand yourself as someone who is carrying a weight that nobody else in this country can understand.And that's true on some level.But what I have been forced with going outin the world is that, A, my American -ness gives me certain privileges, and there are places in the world where that weight, where the weight of anti -Blackness and the privilege are not just not equal, the privilege actually outranks it.There are places in the world like that, and that's a crazy thing to say.

I did not, at the same time, as I say that, you know, anti -Blackness is a global force, You know, we talked about living in Paris, and I'll tell you one of the most incredible things about being there is the city that people see on TV and the city I see.And the city I see is the capital of the blackest country in Europe, the most Jewish country in Europe, and the most Muslim country in Europe.And to interact with people that live under the weight of that, to interact with people who live with the complexity of that, And they understand my privilege as an American because that's what they see when I walk down the street, right?Like I'm not seen as part of that.You know what I mean?But to like have my friends, to be able to talk to them about like the World Cup and how the World Cup plays into their, you know, like their politics.

Like to be exposed to that, like is, I don't, I mean, it's going to sound like melodramatic, but I don't know how to live without that.Like I don't, and what I mean by that is I got a friend and I hope this is still like within the context of the interview.I have a friend.I have families from Cote d 'Ivoire.But she's French, Parisian.Mabula, if you're watching this, this is your story.

But she recently had a birthday party, right?And the birthday party was at our house, and I went and went with my wife.And they were singing her happy birthday.And they sung happy birthday in French.They sung happy birthday in Jula, which is a language spoken in Cote d 'Ivoire.They sung happy

birthday in the Creole, but the Creole of the Antilles of the, you know, the French islands.And I want to say they sung happy birthday in Lingala.That's my recollection.They sung happy birthday.And I sat there with my black American wife and we were like, holy shit.Can you believe like what we're seeing?

Like here we are in this room of like black people, you know, and they're doing something that like, I mean, it's hard to put in words what that moment was like, like when you're from West Baltimore, when you're from Chicago and you go and you see something like that.And so like to have those experiences, like that is what my life is.You understand what I'm saying?Like that is a huge, huge part of my life.And so like, when you ask me, like, how do I not become closed?I don't want to be separate from that.

I don't want to not have those experiences as much horrible things as I saw when I was on the West Bank.as bad as it was, you know, walking through Jerusalem, man, you go into heaven and then afterwards they serve you that, I don't want to mispronounce it, but they flip the thing with the chicken and the rice.You know what I mean?Like you're like, Oh my God.And it's the hosting of it.Right.

And so now you're interacting with who they are as human beings, because they are not just people who, you know, the IDF is putting, you know, a foot on their neck.They got traditions, they have history, they have culture and you're with them.Like that is like a beautiful part of my job.It's a beautiful part of my life, you know?

So sorry, I know that kind of went everywhere.No, that was beautiful.And hey, listen, man, thank you for coming on the show.Thank you for seeing everybody's humanity.Thank you for your work.And this is beautiful.

man.Thank you.Thank you so much.

Thank you.Thank you so much.Appreciate it.

Thanks guys.