John McWhorter – Glenn and John Throw Down over The Message
Episode description
Incogni is your personal data defender, safeguarding you from these digital predators. Use code GLENN at the link below and get 60% off an annual plan: http://incogni.com/glenn
1:22 The Coates debate continues
3:18 John: Coates is a beautiful writer, but …
5:44 John: … The Message is suffused with incuriosity and simplistic thinking
13:45 Glenn: Coates is talking about humanism and power, not race
18:11 Ground News ad
20:25 Is it “all about whitey”?
22:11 Glenn: Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote this book. What am I doing?
27:40 What kind of historical imagination is at work in The Message?
34:11 Moral clarity or abdication of responsibility?
36:30 Pro-Palestinian writers John considers acceptable
41:54 The next entries in Glenn and John’s book club
42:04 Coates’s now notorious interview on CBS Mornings
48:45 What is the black intellectual’s role today?
52:16 The counterexample of South Africa
Recorded October 19, 2024
Links and Readings
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s book, The Message
Glenn and John’s previous conversation
John’s NYT column, “Ta-Nehisi Coates and the Myth of Black Fragility”
Michael Chabon’s novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
Judge Andrew Napolitano on YouTube
Trevor Noah’s conversation with Coates
Ezra Klein’s conversation with Coates
Peter Beinart’s conversation with Coates
David Greenberg’s new book, John Lewis: A Life
Karen and Barbara Fields’s book, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
James Baldwin’s essay, “Letter from a Region in My Mind”
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit glennloury.substack.com/subscribe