The Counterpublic Papers vol. 3 no. 7

I imagine a large number of folk have a pretty good idea of how we get to a point where people like Harvey Weinstein or Kevin Spacey or Michael Oreskes (former NPR senior vice president and editorial director) can just casually assault and harass co-workers without punishment. But for those who don’t this is worth reading. Note the role private discourse plays—some were likely protected because someone told them privately to be careful, and they listened. But private talk can only go so far. It can’t keep people who aren’t exposed to the talk safe, because they don’t know. It can’t keep people who are exposed to the talk but come under the perpetrator’s gaze. And it cannot change the institution. At best maybe it can keep the edges from becoming too sharp. But it cannot change the institution. Shooting a nine millimeter at the glass ceiling will over the short term.

But unless something more systemic happens, it’ll only be a short term fix.

The concept of “the list” goes back decades, and performs valuable work given the climate—and that term doesn’t even capture it, like it’s the air we breathe or something. If harassment is rampant and it’s hard for women to report and/or find justice when they do, then something needs to exist to protect women in advance to the extent it’s possible. Alex Press does an excellent job of talking about it, and about the larger institutional struggle that has to be undertaken.

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I referred to Melvin Rogers’ review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book last week. I’m finally getting around to reading it, at the same time I’m rereading Richard Iton’s In Search of the Black Fantastic for my graduate seminar on Black Politics. I sorely wish Iton were still here—there’s so much I wish I could talk to him about and he was taken from us far too soon. One of the things that caught my eye this go around—Iton’s book really bears rereading because every time I read it I catch something else—was his thoughts about black class anxiety. If the civil rights and post-civil rights era could be characterized as having black unity, then what he calls the post-post civil rights era is characterized by a deep belief in black communities that there really are two communities, one deserving of death and one deserving of life. As he’s writing about black popular culture he’s particularly interested in the way these debates play out within and over black cultural production. For him fears over hip-hop end up reflecting that deep sense of anxiety that some black folk have. A sense that if they’re somehow associated with them then black life as we know it is over. Certainly when the parent tells her son not to wear a hoodie and to speak perfect english to police officers this is what they’re getting at.

Anyway as I’m reading Coates four things stand out.

First he really is a beautiful writer. He does a wonderful job of evoking Baldwin although his message is very different. He isn’t so good of a writer that the seems don’t show—you can tell he’s really trying to write this way in large part because he really is attempting to write from a different time—but he’s good enough that I enjoy reading his sentences.

Second, the book is basically like a DVD with director commentary. The structure is simple. One essay for each of Obama’s eight years in office, with a new essay at the beginning of each year telling the reader where his head was. Even if Coates’ isn’t a good writer, even if his writing isn’t your cup of tea, I think the general reader should appreciate the way Coates has consistently thought on the page. Back when his blog really was a blog he often engaged in a back and forth with his commenters that caused him to go back and revisit his ideas and often to change them. This doesn’t happen that much anymore—as can be seen with the anxiety that reviews of his work usually generate I imagine that he probably couldn’t get that type of constructive feedback even if he wanted to, and given how many people would be itching to tell him what and how to write I’m not sure it’d be useful anyway. This is the closest thing we’re probably going to get to that, with each of the essays giving him an opportunity to reflect back on what he got right and wrong. For instance he’d probably write the Malcolm X/Obama piece a lot differently now if he had another crack at it.

Third, he’s not quite moved from the position he took in Between the World and Me. No. That’s not quite right. He’s moved. But Trump’s election caused him to move right back to the position he’d taken in his second book. For every step forward we get two steps back, and that’s the way it is. The solution is to recognize victory is highly unlikely, unless the stars are aligned just right, and struggle. I’ve argued before that this isn’t a pessimistic position as much as it is a realist position. I’ve been thinking about writing a piece charting an Afro-realist position against the optimistic vision posed by Fred Moten and the pessimistic vision charted by Frank Wilkerson and Jared Sexton….and I’d argue that Coates is firmly in the realist school.

Finally, and this is something he’s said every chance he gets, what’s clear is that the aesthetic that drives him is a hip-hop aesthetic. He wants to write like Baldwin. But he’s no Baldwin. If anything he’s like a Nas or maybe better a Kendrick Lamar (Nas’ politics aren’t as sophisticated). As such his work isn’t about hope or change. It’s about reality. *I know, I know, rap isn’t real.

When Melvin Rogers or Imani Perry or Michelle Alexander write against Coates, I see them exhibiting a deep sense of anxiety. An anxiety similar to that evinced by black populations during the beginnings of the post post civil rights era against rap and hip-hop. What drives this? I think there are a few different dynamics. I don’t believe it’s player hating, although your mileage may vary. What’s going on? Part of it is that even in the presence of something like a Black Lives Matter they don’t believe regular black people have the capacity to make political change, and don’t have the capacity to talk and chew gum at the same time.

(By the way, this is a really good critique of Coates.)

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And while we’re talking about hope and change, understand that we’re now only six states away from a constitutional convention. I’ve mentioned this before, seemingly ages ago. Six states away. While some of us are talking hope and change, others are planning for revolution. 

I should probably leave you with something better to gnaw on.      Oh.If you get a chance to see Kamasi Washington in concert, do so. And if you just so happened to be in Minneapolis at First Avenue last week and I missed you? Sorry.