3675 - Reckoning with Harris' Silence on Gaza w/ Ta-Nehisi Coates

Summary

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The Majority Report with Sam Seder

Episode 3675 — Reckoning with Harris' Silence on Gaza w/ Ta-Nehisi Coates
Date: June 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features a long-form interview with acclaimed author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates on his recent Vanity Fair piece, “Did Kamala Harris’s Silence on Gaza Cost Her the White House?”. The conversation explores the intersection of Black political advancement, American imperial history, the complexities of identity politics, and the moral crisis surrounding U.S. policy in Gaza. Through critical analysis and personal reflection, Coates and Seder examine how the legacy of empire shapes current political realities and collective expectations of marginalized groups in positions of power.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Headline & Intent of Coates' Article

• Coates clarifies the original article wasn’t about pinning Harris' presidential loss on Gaza, but about sparking a nuanced discussion on American empire’s relationship to the Black freedom tradition.

  "We had to boil it down to this very fundamental but hot question that finally got people to read. So what I'm trying to say is not only do I not have an answer, even in writing the piece, I wasn't. I was only kind of interested in the question. I was interested in something else." (24:08)

American Empire and the Black Freedom Struggle

• Empire as a Persistent Adversary: Coates argues that U.S. imperialism isn’t a relic of the past but the continuous context in which Black struggle for power unfolds.

  "Saying Gaza is not a betrayal of American democratic tradition, but an expression of an American imperial tradition." (as paraphrased by Emma, 25:38)

• History of American Imperialism: The conversation details U.S. interventions abroad (Philippines, Iran, Guatemala) as continuity, not contradiction, to democracy at home.

Identity Politics & The Paradox of Representation

• Expectations vs. Reality: Seder and Coates discuss the misplaced hope that personal or group oppression necessarily breeds political compassion or solidarity with other oppressed peoples.

  "Because you go through an experience, because you're oppressed, you are necessarily inured from the impulse to oppress other people. That is nonsense." (38:16)

• Responsibility to Remember: Coates stresses that those raised in traditions of struggle have a greater responsibility not to reproduce oppression.

  "I do think that it's important to ask of people who have been oppressed... that they learn something from that." (38:16)

• The Systemic Trap: The presidency (Black or otherwise) exists within a system designed to perpetuate American power, making individual transformation difficult.

Gaza, Palestine, and Moral Clarity

• Polling & Public Sentiment: Coates notes that Black Americans were among the most skeptical of Israel’s actions in Gaza; the pattern of solidarity is more complex than mainstream narratives suggest.
• Comparisons to Jim Crow and Atrocity Propaganda: Emma highlights parallels between how atrocity propaganda is used against Palestinians and historical characterizations of Black Americans in the Jim Crow South.

Jewish Identity, Trauma, and Israel

• The Holocaust as National Trauma: Seder reflects on how the Holocaust’s trauma informs, and sometimes distorts, Jewish American attitudes toward Israel and political violence:

  "What we're seeing is some type of mass reaction to, like, a mass trauma." (51:17)

• Misreading the Lessons: The segment explores whether “Never Again” was meant for universal prevention of oppression, or was misinterpreted as permission for a particularistic use of power.

Obama, Harris & The Face of Empire

• Moral and Structural Contradictions: Coates elaborates on how Obama’s and Harris's tenures—despite their identities—ultimately did not break with America’s imperial policies:

  "From Colin Powell to Condoleezza Rice to Barack Obama, through Susan Rice, through Linda Thomas Greenfield, through Kamala Harris, that we are becoming the face of this shit. And I don't want us to be the face of it." (58:39)

• The Limits of Presidential Power: Both Seder and Coates suggest that the individual’s character or biography matters less than the systemic pressures and context in which they operate.

The Complexity of Political Progress

• Double Burden of Transformation: Coates emphasizes the impossibility and necessity of simultaneously seeking full citizenship rights and fundamentally transforming America’s imperial character:

  "You're fighting two things at the same time... It's very difficult to try to integrate into something while transforming the thing at the same time." (67:26)

• Class, Experience, & Political Awareness: The discussion touches on whether class dictates sensitivity to international oppression, ultimately finding no clear causal relationship.

Coates’ Political Evolution & Moral Lessons

• Rooted in Tradition: Coates credits his political formation to his family’s radicalism, affirming that “even if their analysis wasn’t sophisticated, their moral sense was right.”

  "Morally, my mom was correct... In some ways, it (morality) mattered more than the knowledge." (73:33)

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Memorable Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Media & Simplification:

  "[The headline] was something more akin to what the story actually talks about... It was not getting read. And so we had to... boil it down to this very fundamental but hot question..." — Ta-Nehisi Coates (24:08)

• On Imperial Consistency:

  "The 20th century was not the cessation of this imperial impulse, but in fact was the continuation of it." — Ta-Nehisi Coates (26:31)

• On Black Political Figures as Faces of Empire:

  "We are becoming the face of this shit. And I don't want us to be the face of it..." — Ta-Nehisi Coates (58:39)

• On Holocaust Memory and Political License:

  "The relationship between the Holocaust and Israel was so cemented in my young Jewish teachings... And the license that many people perceive that it gives them, I think is just really problematic." — Sam Seder (51:17)

• On Knowledge vs. Morality:

  "That my mom's morality... was not just the thing that should be the guiding starter. Actually. It in some ways mattered more... than the knowledge." — Ta-Nehisi Coates (73:33)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [22:20] — Introduction of Ta-Nehisi Coates and discussion set-up
• [24:08] — The real intent behind the “Did Kamala Harris’s Silence on Gaza cost her the White House?” headline
• [25:38–30:24] — American Empire as tradition, not aberration; the Black struggle within & against it
• [33:59] — The contradiction of democracy at home and imperialism abroad (Israel/US comparison)
• [38:16] — Oppression does not immunize against oppressing others
• [41:09–44:55] — Moral vs. political expectations of Black leadership, presidential power, and Democratic Party politics
• [48:57] — Atrocity propaganda and comparing narratives of dehumanization
• [51:17–54:57] — Jewish trauma, Holocaust memory, and the uses/misuses in relation to Israel
• [58:39] — Obama and Harris as inheritors of imperial tradition; the discomfort of “diverse faces” representing empire
• [61:48] — Why does carrying a tradition of liberation not always translate into liberatory politics in office?
• [67:26] — Integrating into, while transforming, American society: an impossible but vital task
• [70:42] — Coates on political evolution and the primacy of moral clarity over technical knowledge

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Takeaways

• The veneer of diversity in leadership does not necessarily disrupt deep imperial or oppressive power structures.
• American empire is a continuous, central force in both domestic and foreign policy; gains at home have often been tied to justifications for violence abroad.
• The experience of oppression does not automatically confer moral clarity or solidarity—a hard but necessary lesson for movements invested in empowerment through representation.
• Mass traumas like the Holocaust and the legacy of slavery profoundly shape, and sometimes distort, the politics of identity, memory, and national conduct.
• Moral expectation should be maintained for those from traditions of struggle, but outcome is shaped as much by structures and context as by character or biography.

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Recommended Action:
Read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Vanity Fair essay (“Did Kamala Harris’s Silence on Gaza Cost Her the White House?”) for the full depth of his argument.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Sam Cedar]

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[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

The.

[Sam Cedar]

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[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Babies often wake up in the middle of the night.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. I wake up crying and I've soiled myself. That's basically it. What is full spectrum, you ask? It basically means these gummies contain all of the natural good stuff from the hemp plant working together, not just pure Saba Day by itself. Some of them have Seba, and some of them have a little bit of Tai Sa. Think of it like the whole team effort, where every ingredient helps the others do their job better than if you were using them alone. That's called the Entourage effect. The goodnight gummies are awesome. I used to be into the goodnight tincture, and then I tried the gummies. And off to the races for me. Been very, very helpful. And like I say, with the. The vibe gummies, I don't go near the Delta 9 because I get a little bit nervous. That's a little bit much for me. I need to block off like a half a day for something like that. But with the vibe gummies, I can hang out, I watch Survivor, get some vibe. Yeah, no, I can get. Head on over to sunsetlake sabade.com and use the coupon code FS26 to save 25% on all full spectrum sabad gummies. The sale ends June 27th at midnight Eastern time. See their site for additional terms and restrictions. Now time for the show the Majority Report with Sam Cedar, where every day's casual Friday. That means Monday is casual Monday, Tuesday, casual Tuesday, Wednesday, casual hump day, Thursday, casual Thirs. That's what we call it. And Friday casual Shabbat. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Friday, June 26, 2026. My name is Sam Cedar. This is the five time award winning Majority Report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, usa. On the program today, author journalist Ta Nehisi Coates will be with us, author of multiple books, both graphic and graphic novels, to discuss his piece Did Kamala Harris Silence on Gaza cost her the White House? Also on the program today, UN agency pauses Hormuz ship transits in the wake of an Iranian strike. They still control the Strait of Hormuz, ladies and gentlemen. Ukraine launches drone bombardments throughout Russia. Supreme Court okays Trump's revocation of protected status to Haitian, Syrian and Frankly, probably all 1.3 million temporary protected status refugees. Supreme Court also bars lawsuits against roundup weed killer Mamdani's pledge to freeze rents for stabilized apartments fulfilled in a 7 to 1 rent guideline board vote. Also on the program, billionaire wealth tax referendum petition certified. It will land on the California ballot in November. Core inflation hits 3.4%. It's the highest since 2023. On a party line vote, Republicans pass a 1.1% trillion dollar defense budget through the House Appropriations Committee. And side note, they're also going to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. Texas State Board of Education set to vote on imposing mandatory Bible instruction throughout the Texas school system. All this and more on today's Majority Report. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

It is casual Friday.

[Sam Cedar]

Look at this. We're matching again.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

We are sort of matching.

[Sam Cedar]

You know what's crazy? I don't ever notice it until I look in the, in the, on the screen.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Well, there you go. I mean, I would say you're wearing a charcoal Polo. I'm wearing a black Polo, but we're close enough.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

When I bought it, it was black.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Okay, understood.

[Sam Cedar]

We will. We'll be talking about Zoran Mamdani's latest victory. That's really actually two. They secured yesterday more money for the expansion of child daycare to happen in 2027. And today, frozen rents for rent control people, despite the fact that it's supposedly it's impossible to happen.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Right. Like you can promise all of these things, but you've got to actually deliver. Oh, wait, it's 2026, not 2025. Right?

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

But I will say this, on hearing about the frozen rent control and the expansion of the childcare, as a Jew, I'm nervous.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

You're Unsettled.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm unsettled by the whole thing. And so I don't know what. I'm beside myself. I don't know what I'm going to do.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I know. Brad Lander's got everyone shaking in their boots.

[Sam Cedar]

Exactly. Yes. He's terrifying figure

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

looms over us all.

[Sam Cedar]

If there's one thing that everybody in Brooklyn knows, if you see Brad Lander walking down the sidewalk, you cross the street.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

He's the left Trump, our next authoritarian leader.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's. Meanwhile, this is a really frankly disturbing story. The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump administration to what appears to be completely arbitrarily revoke the temporary protected status order for Haitians and Assyrians specifically. But it is undoubtedly going to have an impact on the entire 1.3 million people from 17 countries that are in this country under temporary protected status. What temporary protected status means is a. It's basically a refugee program where if there is such political upheaval in your country to make it unsafe, or if there has been a horrible natural disaster that has made it unsafe for you to live in your country or hard, you've been displaced, you have no home and whatnot. Haiti has had both repeatedly, over and over again. We have 300,000 Haitians in this country under temporary protected status. The court's conservative majority argue that the law doesn't allow courts to question the process that immigration authorities use to revoke protections. This is absurd. Yes, because the court is allowed to look at any of the executive branch's decisions to find if they are justified based upon the rules that were set up and the laws, the regulations that were set up by.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

By the.

[Sam Cedar]

The executive branch itself or the legislation. Alito brushed aside arguments that Trump's derogatory comments about Haitians showed the decision was unlawfully tinged by prejudice. He called the statements insufficient to show that termination of Haiti's TPS designation was based on the race of Haitian people. He has called. He is called. He said the Haitians all probably have aids. He has said that they eat cats and dogs. He has gone on to say that they come from asshole countries. It is absurd to say that there is no racism involved in this thing. In fact, here is Megyn Kelly, stalwart of the conservative movement, making her case as to why Haitians should not go back to their country.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

And if you're listening in front of kids, there's a little language in this clip, right?

[Sam Cedar]

What? No, she's being nice about Haitians right now.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

And look, this has been going on for over a dozen Years.

[Sam Cedar]

Go home.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Get out. We know our country's better than yours. That's because we filled it with our work ethic and. And our culture and our values. You being here only dilutes it for us, those who built it and live it. And half of you people, more than half, you won't assimilate. We don't want you. We don't care if you're offended. Get out. Go home. Go back to fucking Haiti. Sorry, I'm just. I'm thinking about our friends in Ohio who've been dealing with these TPS Haitians for years now who are drunk driving all over their towns and killing people. This is the whole cats and dogs

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

thing, like, one whole thing.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Don't want to live like Americans live.

[Sam Cedar]

Lie about cats and dogs.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

This was supposed to be a temporary. It was supposed to be temporary help, and it's turned into another backdoor way of allowing someone permanent residency here. And they take advantage of all of our public services and our.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I mean, Nazi lie. Okay? The reason that this TPS is an insufficient program is because there is no path to citizenship. So there are, what, 1.3 million people, as you say, under this program, many of whom have built lives. TPS started for Haiti in 2010. Some. Some of these people have been here for, you know, almost two decades at this point, over a decade. They have kids that go to school. That's what we're talking about here, uprooting their very lives.

[Sam Cedar]

The first off, we should say that the reason why you provide temporary protected status and the reason why it gets extended is because these problems that initially allowed for you to be allowed in the remain.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Here's just.

[Sam Cedar]

In the past three weeks, Haiti's displacement crisis record, 1.5 million people. That is internal displacement. That is a function of the complete sort of like anarchy. I don't even know a violent anarchy that exists in Haiti. And recall that the idea that this is because of their culture or this is because of, like, they don't like to work hard. This country has been undermined by the United States, like, a countless number of times. Like, literally multiple coups perpetrated by the United States just in the 21st century.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Right? And that's maybe, I guess, at the

[Sam Cedar]

end of the 20th century and the 21st century.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

And that's after what France did to Haiti.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, France, Haiti was responsible. I don't know if most people don't seem to be aware of this. The Haitian Revolution in 1818 50, I want to say, where they threw off the. Their colonizers and their enslavers.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

1791.

[Sam Cedar]

17. Okay, sorry. 50 years earlier, they threw off their French colonizers and enslavers. They got independence. Of course the United States was terrified at the idea of slaves revolting. France then put a blockade around Haiti. Haiti, literally until 1947, for almost 150 years, had to spend anywhere between 15 and 50% of their GDP to pay reparations to France because France lost all their property. That is the literal human beings, the slaves, former slaves, had to pay France for their freedom and for the, for France's loss of the commodity of these human beings. 15 to 50% of their GDP for 150 years. And then any attempts at democracy were thwarted by the United States. So the idea that this is some type of like cultural thing, like there's the racism and she.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yeah, and she says that they're using our, our benefits. They're leeching of society. God, where have we heard about that before? When we call her a Nazi. We're not being hyperbolic. This is what Nazis were saying about Jews. It's all lies. They can't get Medicaid. TPS recipients are ineligible for Medicaid. They're ineligible for Medicare. They're ineligible for Social Security because they're more. They're ineligible for our, like the threadbare social safety that we have in this country. They actually pay more into our government than the actual citizens do because we get those benefits back at some point, at least for now.

[Sam Cedar]

On top of all that, of course, the cats and dogs thing was a lie. And the drunk driving. I am sure that there has been a Haitian who has drunk drive. There's also been some Americans that have drunk driven as well. It's so dangerous. It is so dangerous in Haiti right now that armed men have kidnapped James Boyard. He's a security expert. He's also the cabinet director of Haiti's defense ministry and the police's inspector general. He had been tasked with helping Haiti rebuild its armed forces and assess the national police and implement reforms. He, his wife and his six year old daughter were kidnapped traveling to visit to see a doctor for the child.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

So what this is they're advocating for is an ethnic cleansing of this country of black and brown people. Syrians are also impacted by this who have been kept in a sub citizen status on purpose because both political parties refused to deal with the issue of immigration. TPS always should have had a way for them to apply for citizenship and a pathway, but they've been kept in legal limbo because it's more easily exploitated and that. And so now we're at the final the end of that which is the okay, now you don't have any rights. We're going to attempt to deport you and put this ethnic cleansing campaign into practice.

[Sam Cedar]

There is literally a billboard in New York City in an attempt to capitalize on Mamdani fear. This is from a year ago they where New Yorkers are encouraged to move to Ohio presumably because they're so desperate to have people move there despite the fact that there's no room for Haitians to live there and all We've seen all the reports that came from, from out of Springfield, Ohio in the wake of those lies where you had a lot of employers going like the Haitians are the best workers I have.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Oh, one of the articles in our packet this morning was saying how elder care homes are freaking out about this. Yeah, these are people that contribute to our society and yet also like these,

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

these are places that were originally settled by like peasants from Europe that were considered immigrants at the time. It's very ridiculous to close ranks and

[Sam Cedar]

built by slaves and yeah, that's awesome. And yet the Supreme Court would have you believe, or at least the conservative majority that there's no, there's no evidence of racism here. I mean they don't seem to have looked at any of the facts or added anything up. But that's just the nature of for

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

smirching the clan court, the court.

[Sam Cedar]

We'll be talking a lot about the court over the next couple of days and I suspect over the next several months as Alito and Thomas have some decisions to make about their futures in the meantime. In a moment we're going to be talking to Ta Nehisi Coates, author and journalist about his most recent piece in Vanity Fair. Did Kamala Harris silence on Gaza cost her the White House? But first, a word from our sponsor. You hear a lot about game changing hair products. I mean I guess some people do, some people I don't necessarily work in those circles. However for me I noticed a little bit of thinning that was happening back in the day. I would get out of the shower, I would look down on my towel and I'd be like, wait a second, I'm shedding a little bit more than I should and I don't have many. I have a limited amount arsenal of attributes and my hair is one of them. And so I decided I wanted to help my hair but I didn't want to take any drugs that may have some side effects, etc. Etc. Well, I chose neutrophil. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement. It is a used by over 1.5 million people. I've been using Nutrafol now. I mean, I've told this story a million times. We had it in the office years ago. They wanted to sponsor the program. Nobody was looking to take it at that time. A year later I was like, I'm gonna try this because I heard both from Emma and another friend of mine of two women who had amazing results with it. And again, I wanted to try it and wanted to get take a drug. And it's been great. Neutrophil now has formulas built for men at different life stages too. Neutrophil for men guys 18 to 49. And the new neutral fall men 50 plus, which is mine, which is the first product of its kind specifically made for men over 50. What about men over well over 50? Address the key root causes of thinning. Wherever you are in life, grow visibly thicker, fuller hair in three to six months. Start neutral today. Make the hat optional. Visit nutrafol.com Enter the promo code TMR10. That's TMR10 for 10 bucks off your first month subscription and free shipping. Find out why Nutrafol is the best selling hair growth supplement [e-mail] spelled n u t r a f o l.com promo code TMR10. That's nutrifal.com promo code TMR10. Quick break. When we come back, we'll be talking to Ta Nehisi Coates, author, journalist. His books include the Water Dancer, the Message and we're going to discuss in part his piece in Vanity Fair. Did Kamala Harris's Silence on Gaza cost her the White House? We'll be right back.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

It.

[Sam Cedar]

Sam. We are back. Sam Cedar, Emma Vigland on the Majority Report. It is a pleasure to welcome to the program Ta Nahasi Coates, author, journalist of multiple books, including graphic novels, which I've actually got. My son 1 is into this and also a contributing editor, Vanny Fair, Sterling Brown endowed chair in the English Department at Howard University. And we're here to discuss, at least in part, his piece did Kamala Harris Silence on Gaza, Kasser the White House and Vanny Fair. Ta Nehisi, welcome to the program.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Well, thanks for having me, Sam and

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Emma, good to see you.

[Sam Cedar]

Let's, well, let's just start. What is your opinion just I mean, on a before we get into actually the, the, the, the breaking down this question, do we have a sense as to whether she lost over Gaza.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I have a story to tell about that. So just as the short answer is, I do not. Like, I could not definitively tell you that. And I think for different reasons, on both sides, there are people who would like to tell you that maybe they have a better sense of it than I do. The story I have to tell is that this, the original headline. If you go back and look at this story, if somebody can do it through the Wayback Machine, that was not the headline. The headline was something. I can't remember what it was, but it was probably something more akin to what the story actually talks about. And, God, this is a horrible sign of our times. It was not getting read. And so we had to, like, figure out on our side. And I was intimately a part of this. Like, look, we just spent all this time doing this research, doing all this reading and everything. How do we get this thing, like, how do we get people into this much more complicated conversation that we want to have, that I want to have actually about American empire, about Palestine, about Gaza, how that actually fits into American history? And what happens when that has a collision with the black freedom tradition in this country that in fact made Kamala Harris possible in the first place? And I don't know what it says about our times that we had to boil it down to this very fundamental but hot question that finally got people to read. So what I'm trying to say is not only do I not have an answer, even in writing the piece, I wasn't. I was only kind of interested in the question. I was interested in something else.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Well, what I love about the piece, I mean, there's so much to love here, but one of the major themes is about adding empire to the list of adversaries to black people gaining power politically in this country, and at the very least, updating it to make sure that that's included to reflect the history here. There's one great quote of yours. I have it here on page 11. Just saying Gaza is not a betrayal of American democratic tradition, but an expression of an American imperial tradition. Can you expand on that? Because I also think it ties into how you interwove Fanny Lou Hamer's radicalism into the piece and contrasting how that was kind of distorted by the DNC and then embraced in a different way by the uncommitted movement.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, you know, thanks for that question. I mean, the first thing I have to say is that a broader critique or the notion that the black struggle is not just about, you Know, black people's right to follow other immigrant groups and become white, you know, to integrate, you know, the powers. That's a long, long standing critique that, you know, it's very hard to not be aware of that. You know, everybody knows the famous James Baldwin quote about, you know, integrating a burning house. I have to be honest with you, until probably I went over to Palestine in 2023, and then all of the reading and all the conversation that spun out of that, I could not have told you that in detail what that meant. So, okay, did I know that obviously the United States of America was built on the theft of land, the genocide of the indigenous people of the country? Yes, yes, I knew that. Did I understand that that was immediately followed by the overthrow of the Queen of Hawaii? Yeah, I kind of knew that. Did I understand about the war in the Philippines after that, and Teddy Roosevelt and imperialism and Cuba and the Dominican Republic? Yeah, kind of, a little bit. What I did not understand at all was the extent to which the 20th century was not the cessation of this imperial impulse, but in fact was the continuation of it. That Eisenhower could not go a year without trying to overthrow the leadership of some country somewhere. Sometimes democracy, sometimes not. Democracy was completely irrelevant to that. That John F. Kennedy comes into office, and before he was in office, he went around the world and wrote all of this stuff against imperialism, got into office and went right at it and was so profligate with it that, in fact, when he was killed, Malcolm X got in all this trouble for saying chickens had come home to roost. But that was exactly what Bobby Kennedy thought. That was what Lyndon Johnson thought, that Lyndon Johnson himself was no different, that he followed that up, that obviously Nixon was no different. And so when you start seeing it to that level, what you say is this is actually a tradition that extends back to the founding of the country. And I think what makes it hard is two things. The first thing is it is so contrary to how most Americans think of their country and the image that America has propagated throughout the world. And in fact, that when black people who have maintained integration as a huge part of their struggle see reaching the apex of power as. As a black president, the notion that we would now then inherit that tradition, and how that collides with our own desires and impulses that have long been part of our struggle, it's tough.

[Sam Cedar]

When I was in the part of your piece where you are comparing that era of Kennedy and Johnson and Truman, for that matter, but the gains that black people made, particularly obviously in the 60s. It occurs to me too, that, like, the impulse at that time, I mean, American imperial, imperial impulse, the motivation or the justification maybe changes through our history. In that era, it was very much driven by an anti communism, which I'm also quite convinced the gains of black people during that era were also

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

through

[Sam Cedar]

that lens of anti communism as we were involved in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. It's almost like that was part of the same project on some level.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, you know, but one of the. Really. And I'm glad you asked that question because there was no room to get into this in the piece. But one of the really chilling things is the extent to which, like, communism was often just an excuse. For instance, when Mosaddegh was not a communist, you know what I mean? That was the excuse they gave for overthrowing him. But the real reason was they wanted access to the oil that he was threatening to nationalize or had Arbenz in Guatemala. I mean, he's not like a puppet of the Soviet Union, but they use communism as this excuse. And so, look, had it been communism, that would have been wrong enough. But so many of these governments were not. I mean, Lumumba wasn't a communist or wasn't yet. Certainly he was making alliances or looking to make alliances with the Soviet Union. But so much of this effort was directed at governments and states. That you look at it and it's like, oh, you guys are just using that as an excuse. And I guess this is the point. Why I would just like to say that, you know, there are books that really influenced me on this. The Jakarta Method, Stephen Kinzel book, the Brothers. And what you see in that work is that, you know, communism is just an excuse to take shit from people, to be honest.

[Sam Cedar]

Corporations taking that. I mean, I.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

But I mean, to be fair, I'm not convinced that they felt it was communist for countries to nationalize their. Their resources or to keep their resources for their own people. That was their perception of what communism was. It was antithetical to capitalism, which is in and of itself has a sort of imperialistic quality. I mean, it's the shark has to keep moving or it dies type of situation.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yeah. Just to expand on that, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. You know, when we're talking about, say, you know, the enfranchisement of black people and the right to vote and those gains happening in the 60s and the notion of democracy and what that means both internally in the imperial core. We could also talk about Israel calling itself a democracy. And yet ruling over an entire population with impunity and giving them no political rights. It's almost a mirror image of how the United States empire interacts with. With the world via imperialism, where, okay, yes, within the imperial core, within the privileged state, there is some semblance of democratic representation. But in the Jim Crow south, of course, black people were excluded from that. In this country and then internationally, we make all of these decisions as an empire that impact millions and millions of lives. We've killed millions and millions of people for the American project, and they have no say in that.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, Emma, can you just clarify that question a little bit for me? I just want to make sure I'm responding.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Sure. Just the comparison between, say, like, American democracy being democratic for people within it, Israeli democracy being democratic for people within it, but the sheer power of the decisions that come from said democracy impacting people outside of those borders in really deadly destructive ways and how that shows, you know, what political rights within these, say, kind of imperial cores means for the rest of the world.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. And I just. I think one of the great problems with that, and I haven't spent enough time in Israel proper to understand whether it is true, but certainly within America, it's just like, look, I was raised in a pretty dissident family. Again, I was not completely new to these arguments, but the extent of it is really, really hard to understand. Look, in the black community, Johnson is seen as one of the good presidents. And to understand that at the same time, he's contemplating and signing the Voting Rights act, you know, he's engineering the overthrow, you know, of the government in Indonesia that is going to lead to a million deaths and God knows how many people, you know, imprisoned. That many of the people that you hold up, you know, as being part of your very liberating struggle will then in turn do great harm, you know, to other people around the world. I mean, it breaks the brain, you know, because then it's like, okay, so what am I actually trying to do here? Like, what is my struggle? Because in these communities, I mean, people really, really are suffering. This is happening at the very same time, you know, that people are being lynched, that your leaders are being shot down, that you are suffering segregation, which in and of itself is its own system of plunder. So what is my place in this? And probably the most sympathetic reading I can give to, if not to Kamala Harris, but to certainly, you know, the movement that supported her among black people is it's like, how are we supposed to think about this? Like, who are we supposed to be, you know, inside this? And I wrote that piece to really. To challenge people on that particular point.

[Sam Cedar]

I was also struck in the piece, getting back to that a little bit, there was a quote by Tiffany Cross, journalist and author, who was part of an early movement to get Biden to commit to naming a black woman as a. As the vice presidential nominee. And the quote is, I would think, I would hope anyway, that a black woman is someone who's going to say the uncomfortable thing in the. I would trust that a black woman could not see tens of thousands of children being murdered and not be struck by that, not be moved by that, whether you're a mother or not. I trust we experienced that. We saw that firsthand of violence in America, and we've had to tap into our humanity in a certain way. I mean, the piece is in many ways about that sort of paradox of where black people have to now sort of like in power, buy into the same. The. I guess, the contemporary version of what was happening in this country years back or some iteration of it. But are we, like, is that a problem, I mean, with our politics on some level? I mean, I see this with Jews, right? Like, I was taught much of my education. I'm at an age where, you know, much of my Jewish education was founded on the Holocaust. My. I had my Hebrew school teachers. A couple of them, you know, had tattoos on their. On their arms. I mean, that was, you know, we were 30 years out from the. From the Holocaust when I was 10 or whatever it was. And the lesson that I understood was that, like, Jews would never do what they're doing in Israel. And I've been proven wrong. I mean, and to a certain extent, it's why I think, like, many Jews turned a blind eye to what was going on there for so many years because it was just not comprehensible. And on some level, like, maybe the problem is holding on to these notions that an identity and even the cultural stuff that's built into that identity ends up dictating in these moments.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. So I want to separate two things. I think the one thing you mentioned is the notion that because you go through an experience because you're oppressed, you are necessarily inured from the impulse to oppress other people. That is nonsense. You know what I mean? Like, that just. There's just, you know, it's not just Jews. It's not just black folks. I mean, we just have plenty of experience of, you know, immigrant group after immigrant group, you say, coming from Europe over here and actually, you know, duplicating oppression even as they flee from and throughout the world. I mean, that just is a consistent thing of humanity. The one part I want to hold on to, and this is what Tiffany was really speaking to, because, I mean, she was actually speaking as somebody who was disappointed in Kamala, you know, not as somebody who, you know, was endorsing, you know, what Kamala's silence and her unwillingness, you know, to have a, you know, a Palestinian speaker. She was actually speaking as of a disappointment. The notion is that it should teach you. And I do hold to that. I do hold to that because, like, I do think that it's important to ask of people who have been oppressed, who have been terrorized themselves, who have been excluded and marginalized themselves, that they learn something from that. And I actually think that is contrary to the expectation, because I think it's contrary to the expectation that they won't like, that they will have some automatic understanding of it and thus won't do it themselves just because they went through it. I think the expectation that there should be some degree of knowledge, some degree of compassion, some degree of understanding, I think it's a good thing. I mean, one of the things I say towards the back of the piece is, look, despite everything we've heard and everything we've read, and despite the division between certain camps of black activists and certain camps of Palestinian activists, man, if you look at the polling, I mean, the most skeptical group of people of Israel's actions in Gaza were, in fact black people. The first co sponsor of the ceasefire, who works with Rashida Tlaib, is a black woman. It's Cori Bush. And the first group, a majority, I think it was like half of the group of people who ultimately signed on to that were black. The AME Church, which is not known for its radicalism, comes out against it. A number of black pastors come out against it. So this is a very complicated thing that's going on. And I've seen it even in the reaction to my piece. I think it was very much in that piece. There were black women in that piece who will support Kamala to the hilt. And there are black women in that piece who were deeply, deeply disappointed in how she handled Gaza. And so I feel like, as somebody who roots himself in the black freedom tradition, I have a responsibility to make sure that this experience does not become a badge for us to go and do things to other people or support the doing of things to other people.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yeah. And it's also when you.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Does that make sense? Does that make sense?

[Sam Cedar]

It does. It does. But I guess.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, I guess what I'm saying. I think it's an interesting question.

[Sam Cedar]

Well, I mean, I think, like, there's a difference between a moral expectation and a political expectation.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, you know, I mean, there was nothing in Harris's history that would indicate

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

a

[Sam Cedar]

particular sensitivity to a whole host of questions that one would on a sort of like, moral or ethical sense. Like, say, you know, maybe there should be more sensitivity simply because of the tradition and what your ancestors have gone through. And so it was simply a function of a profile as opposed to someone who has actually engaged with in a tradition, in that tradition. And that's where I start getting to it. Political.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I disagree with that. Like, look, I mean, this is the thing I say at the back of the piece. I mean, she's very clear in her biography about, like, how she grew up and the values she grew up on. She talks about her, you know, her parents being involved in the protest tradition. She was born in 1964 in the Bay Area, which is, you know, a hotbed of political activism and radicalism. She's very clear in her book about, you know, who she was raised on, about seeing people like Amiri Baraka, about seeing people like Fannie Lou Hamer and how that influenced her. She herself roots herself, you know, you can say, in her career, like, maybe

[Sam Cedar]

that's what I'm talking about. Yeah, I mean, she. She may self proclaim, but, you know, you know, it's like she was a prosecutor.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I don't have a complete breakdown on her career, but I guess what I want to say is I don't really want to. I am deeply uncomfortable condemning or writing off people who looked at her, saw themselves in her, and also said, we expect you to see some measure of our struggle and your humanity in other people. Now, maybe they were ultimately wrong, you know, in that, but I. I guess I'm a little uncomfortable condemning that.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Well, it's also, I think, when we're having a systemic conversation about. You have a quote, fairly or not a quote, you write early on in your piece about a black presidency as a contradiction. It 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 I think, you know, Harris was not a transformational political figure in terms of a vision in that way. And the circumstances in which she was thrust into the nomination did not give her the ability to pivot in that way. And I don't necessarily think ideologically she had that kind of politics, but it's perhaps more of a way to indict the system of empire than it is to, I don't know, basically indict assumptions made that about her from voters that have been. And black voters in the Democratic Party in particular have been told time and time again, election cycle after election cycle, that you have to vote Democrat as a harm reduction measure. The problem is that we've gotten to a point where there's no credibility on that or less credibility.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. No, no. One of the things I really was trying to do was to some degree, take the focus off of her and think about this, like, the idea of a black presidency, period, and to a large extent, about the presidency. And, you know, Sam, I think the question you're kind of getting at is probably one that I have been thinking about since I came back from Palestine. You understand what I'm saying? Like, the extent to which these groups and this history actually matters when you're talking about, you know, actual power. And, you know, Emma, I guess at the end, you know, I'm still trying to figure this out myself, you know, and I don't have a firm answer here, but I guess the question I am asking myself, which goes beyond the scope of that piece, what is a black presidency actually worth? Like, what are we trying to do here? And maybe larger than that, to what extent, you know, should we be organizing our politics around individuals as presidents? Now, presidents have a lot of power. I'm not, you know, saying the presidency, period, but individuals, you know, as presidents, you know, there was nothing, to your point, Sam. There was nothing, if you look at the biography of Abraham Lincoln, that would indicate the kind of impact he would ultimately have on black life in this country. You know, he was a pretty middle of the road, you know, politics, and really kind of remained one until, like, the last two years of his life. Really, you know, as you get deeper into the war, what I think is that we maybe give more attention to the character of people than we should and don't pay attention to maybe the history and the context that's happening around them, you know, that ultimately may, you know, shape them, you know, more than, like, who, like, how great they are, you know, necessarily as a human being or, you know, how courageous they are themselves.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yeah, I mean, it's about, I think, having a collectivist worldview as well, which I think, you know, perhaps at one point, maybe we'll talk about New York. We're having some of, I think, people's Minds are changing about what Zoram Hamdani describes as the warmth of collectivism versus the rugged individualism that sometimes I think sets people figureheads like Kamala Harris up to be. I mean, frankly, the way that Biden sidelined her and also at the beginning, I would say undercut her by explicitly tokenizing her to a degree, didn't help her in many ways. And just to stay on your piece for one more second, because I really appreciated this part of it as well. When you were contextualizing black women's trauma in this country and you were describing enslavement as a system of rape, and you quoted this historian, Paula polygamy, she alone could give birth to a slave. Blacks constituted a permanent labor force and metaphor that were perpetuated through the black woman's womb. Just this idea that black women in particular bore this burden in America as they could produce more slaves. Right. And just to compare it to right now, you see some of the atrocity propaganda and how Israelis present themselves as victims of these scary Muslims, rabid Palestinians that are coming after their women to attack them. And there's this kind of self victimization as well, where, you know, specifically if people of color show humanity towards black Palestinians, you'll have Zionists treat these calls for liberation as like attacks, as bigotry against the oppressor. And I'm just wondering if you've noticed some of those similarities about the atrocity propaganda about Palestinians and how in many ways it looks like these were clipped from the Jim Crow south to justify lynchings.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, yeah, I have, I have, I have. I definitely have. And you know, my way of dealing with that is there's right and wrong in the world. You could take the worst, most heinous thing or the most heinous system that you've seen, maybe slavery itself. And nothing about that makes me think that that should be done to the people that perpetrated it. Some things are just absolutely in themselves, completely wrong. And I think having a politic that is more based on peoples as opposed to ethnic affinities is extremely, extremely, extremely, extremely important. And maybe even in this question that we keep, that we've been circling around in this interview, I mean, I've said this before, but to me, look what I saw over there, either it's right or wrong. And there is nothing that I could see any Palestinian doing that would make what I saw on the west bank, in Hebron, in the settlements themselves, which I actually went into, nothing, nothing I could see that, like, nothing makes that right. I don't care what they did, you know, and like, there is this implicit notion that some people deserve certain things, you know, and that is then in turn used, you know, or, you know, it becomes very, very vulnerable because if you can pin certain acts on certain people, well, they're terrorists. Well, they did this. Look at who they kill. Look at, you know, that somehow then can justify systemic cruelty, systems of plunder, systems of exploitation. And I just don't believe that. Can I just take just a quick journalistic license before we move off this piece?

[Sam Cedar]

Sure, of course.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Sam, I want to ask you, because I've actually heard you speak about this quite a bit on this show, and your question really does intrigue me. What, like, having seen everything you've seen and come to your place of consciousness about Palestine and Israel and Zionism and everything, like, what does all of that teaching about the Holocaust mean to you? Does the Holocaust have any sort of place in your politics? Does it have anything to teach you in terms of struggle at this point?

[Sam Cedar]

Honestly, like, I think at this time, when I think about it and its resonance, I see it as a mass trauma. Like, it. I mean, it's almost like my perspective on it has changed to. You know, that's just what dominates my thinking now in this era is that this is. It's really more of like a psychological thing. Like, there is literally a. What we're seeing is some type of mass reaction to, like, a mass trauma. I can't really place it in other. In any other context. I mean, I, you know, I. The relationship between the Holocaust and Israel was so cemented in my young Jewish teachings. I mean, I think as a kid, I was aware, you know, my son just got bar mitzvahed. And I remember my bar mitzvah speech. I said something to the effect of, like, we're all here because of the Holocaust. Like, we're guilty. We feel guilty. And that was not met with the. With the. I mean, not everybody was excited about that, but at the time, but. But in retrospect, I think I was onto something on some level. Like there was. And the license that many people perceive that it gives them, I think is just really problematic, like, somehow. I mean, I think it's just like a trauma reaction, which is, you know, I hope people don't interpret as an excuse, but it.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

But then also empowered by, like, the state as well, and by institutions in ways, I think that came after.

[Sam Cedar]

I mean, I think. I think the impetus. I mean, look, the people in the Irgun and the Haganah and the Stern gang They justified doing some horrible things. And I think it was because we're owed something, we have license and, and I think that, you know, disseminates through a people and I don't know how you recover from that. I mean, I have no idea. But it's a bad thing. What's the point of teaching about the Holocaust if the answer is we just need better guns?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah. I mean, one thing, and again, you would notice better than me, but being struck by just the sheer number of Jewish voices in the Palestinian freedom of. I mean, being struck by what happened in what was Dan Goldman's district. I mean, is there not one argument that actually people heard the lessons too well? I mean, like, they just believed them and took them too well in ways that maybe some of the people teaching the lessons did not want them to and they're just applying those universally.

[Sam Cedar]

Oh, in other words, that it wasn't taught, it was not taught. Like this means for everybody, but that some people absorb that. I mean, that was the argument that. Yeah, that was the argument that I think, like. Was it a former Obama official was making on her book tour? Oh, yes, that literally, like people misunderstood. I mean.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, that's what she said. She did say that.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Yes.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

She was like, we made a mistake.

[Sam Cedar]

Yes. I mean that's, that's nuts. I mean, in my mind that's nuts. Like, I don't remember, like, you know, and you know, I didn't, I grew up in Western Massachusetts. It was not like a very, like, it was not the most Jewish of places, but we were, you know, in Hebrews. I don't remember a teacher saying, hey, look, this, you're learning this. When we say never again, it means that we've got to get armed and fight like that.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Nationalism, though, isn't that the drug of nationalism that gives you this feeling of empowerment and pride and it can be addicting in and of itself. And you have Israeli nationalists that say we are not the Jews that would let the Holocaust happen to us. And that is not reflective of Jewish diaspora in this country at all. But in Jewish institutions where they're at large scale Zionist institutions, that is the more that is the operational view. And I think that's, that's part of the contradiction when you see that, you know, a majority of Jewish Democrats believe Israel is committing genocide, but the Jewish institutions are not reflecting the population in this country.

[Sam Cedar]

But I think it also has to do with like age proximity, you know, temporal proximity to the Holocaust. I mean, certainly, you know, I've told this story many times, but like someone, a friend of my father's who came to my bar mitzvah, my sister's bar mitzvahs, had many passovers with us, called him like a year ago and asked if I was an anti Semite. And my father asked, are you inviting him to Saul's bar mitzvah? And I'm like, ah, no,

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

I'm not

[Sam Cedar]

going to be doing that. No, no, no.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Because he's Jewish.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah. I said, we have a quota, too many Jews are coming, so do it. But I mean, honestly, it was like, I think that's just a mass psychosis, frankly. I mean, and I don't know if it's a question of like, there was a, you know, I think in the context of Israel and certainly the Molly Crabapple's new book, I mean, covers some of this and certainly the research. There was a disdain for the Jewry of Europe. There was a victim blaming, I think that took place and I think like the reason why Benjamin Netanyahu, you know, calls himself Benjamin Netanyahu as opposed to change his name. I don't want to dead name him. I don't remember what it was, but I think it was an idea of escaping that profile. Like we don't want to be those shtetl Jews or those ghetto Jews.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

And

[Sam Cedar]

it looks a lot worse as time goes on. With that said, also, sorry, I took

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

us on a tangent, but that's fine.

[Sam Cedar]

I want to ask also in terms of the, that paradox in the, in the piece, where does Obama fit into that? Like, where does, like, in terms of that, like, how do you perceive Obama within that framework?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

In much the same way I perceive Harris. I mean, I think it's the same thing. You know, I think it's actually completely the same thing. And again, this was not an awareness or consciousness, you know, I had. But I mean, obviously, you know, you have, what is it? The week after he's elected and Bush is, you know, a lame duck, they airstrike a wedding party and then five years later, I mean, that one was in Afghanistan, five years later in Yemen, they air strike another wedding party, you know, Libya, you know, look, and you can, you know, say all these things about, you know, how bad a guy could Gaddafi was. I'm not here to disagree with you, but the notion that our policy is that a head of a state, you know, should die being dragged out of a pipe and, you know, sodomized, you know, with the bayonet and then that the Secretary of State will go on national news and laugh about it and brag about it, right? Like that there's a, A particular kind of disdain. And I just think we have this acceptance. And to your point, clearly being black has not inured individuals from this acceptance that we're just gonna make war in the Middle east. And it's fine. It's fine. And that's just the state of play, and that's okay. And look, to be honest with you, and Obama's obviously kind of the apex of this. What I am concerned with, maybe this is like the latent nationalists in me. What I am concerned with is that from Colin Powell to Condoleezza Rice to Barack Obama, through Susan Rice, through Linda Thomas Greenfield, through Kamala Harris, that we are becoming the face of this shit. And I don't want us to be the face of it. I don't want, like, I don't. I don't want us to be the face of it. You know, I just, I don't think we want to be the face of it either. You know, I don't think we quite understand because I didn't, you know, what that all, you know, means. You know, and again, I cite them as individuals, but I don't. I'm not, you know, necessarily interested, you know, in their particular, you know, moral failings or whatever. You know, I think that, you know, there's systemic things at work, you know, But I just, I don't, I don't, I don't. I don't want the in line of our struggle to be us sitting in the UN justifying dropping bombs on people like how they drop bombs on Tulsa. You know what I mean? Like, I don't, I don't like that. That's not what the list.

[Sam Cedar]

For me, I mean, I get like, what is. This is gonna sound like a weird question, but.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

But why?

[Sam Cedar]

Like, I mean, I mean, I get it. I mean, I get it from like

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

a.

[Sam Cedar]

I get it on one level, but the. What. What are the implications of that outside of, like, existential?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

For me. Yeah, for me. And I can tell you why. I mean, I just, like, I am not here talking to you. I'm not here having this conversation with you if not for the fact that people sacrificed, you know, people died. I mean, I'm telling you which. What you already know, you know, people struggled. People made this possible. And there is a tradition of their vision of liberty not just being solely for black people to get things that was, like, why it was important to cite Coretta Scott King, you know, and to note the fact that Coretta Scott King was loudly against the Vietnam War three, four years before Martin Luther King himself was fought. What she says is so powerful, you know, she says, listen, how can Lyndon B. Johnson be so sympathetic to these black kids in Alabama while dropping bombs on Vietnam, you know, Vietnamese children? And she says something really, really important. I think it's because we let him, you know, for Fannie Lou Hamer, you know, at the same time that, you know, she's arguing against, you know, segregation, you know, and the Mississippi, you know, Democratic delegation being segregated to be against, you know, what she calls this racist war in Vietnam. And I focused on black women because that was the piece. But there's certainly, you know, many more, you know, we can go into boys. What I'm saying is I owe them, man. Like, I owe them. They're the reason I am here. And like, they were fighting for something. And I guess I feel a particular debt to them. And so, like, that's the why, you know, like, I feel like I owe Coretta Scott King, I owe Fannie dulame, I owe Web.

[Sam Cedar]

Why do you think then doesn't Obama and Harris. Well, no, no, but why do you

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

think they don't hear it, Brother? That's the million dollar question. Because as I said, you know, it was very important to me that I end that piece the way I did, because. Harris's biography does not strike me as somebody who was new to the notion of black struggle and that intersection with a broader international struggle. In fact, she probably knows more about it than I do. You know, I just read some books recently. She probably been thinking about this for years. It's in Obama's book. It's actually in his book. He talked like he arrives in Indonesia maybe a year, you know, after, you know, they start, you know, massacring people and putting people in jail. And he writes about it. I mean, it's, you know, his defense. It's not like. It's not like he hides it. He's very much aware of that. Why that didn't ultimately play a larger part in his policy, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's because you gotta be a peculiar or different kind of person to run for presidents to be the president in the first place. Maybe that weeds out certain people right off the bat. I don't know. I don't know. Some would say it actually did, you know, and this is about as restrained as it gets for an American president. You know, some would tell you that, you know, and I'm just telling you what the reporting, you know, I did told me. I Don't think this, you know, should offer any sort of comfort or consolation or forgiveness on the parts of Palestinians themselves. But I had so many people tell me, in fact, I had, you know, founders of Uncommitted tell me that behind the scenes, you know, Kamala Harris clearly disagreed with Joe Biden and would say it, and they believed her, and they believed that she was sincere. You know. Now, what you would say to me, and I think this is correct, is that what you say is what matters ultimately. And what you say off the record and behind the scenes is kind of irrelevant, you know, so, you know, I'm just. I don't know why it doesn't matter more. I don't know.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

I guess.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Sam, can I just. Just. I know I've talked a lot, but I'm actually thinking this through as I talk. What I will tell you is even in that era, there were people who thought that it should not be a bigger deal. There were people that were mad at Fannie Lou Hamer, the SCLC was mad at Coretta Scott King for going out and talking about the Vietnam War. W.E.B. du Bois had tension with the NAACP, you know, and so even in that era, what I have to acknowledge is, yes, there were very, very important black people who actually said, oh, no, actually, this is just for us, you know, and that's a tradition, too.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Well, perhaps it's about weighing the. Say, what blame goes around against the institutional barriers and the newness of black civil rights, and also the impulse, frankly, by many liberals to, as you say, put up black faces in places and people as a way to obscure, I think, some of their own policies. And it is kind of results in a culmination of an erasure of the collective struggle that the right is speedrunning. Of course, like, we could talk about America 250 and this. This insane nationalism cage matches on the White House lawn and what that's supposed to indicate about America's history versus the reality. But perhaps it's about melding in that context when trying to talk about critiques about the roles that black people play within the institution of our government.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, I mean, I do think it's that. And I just think, like, you as a black person, like your pain, your agony, your slavery, your Jim Crow, all of that is very much responsible for this country as it exists. And yet you yourself also believe that there, you know, maybe some wonder, not maybe you do, that there's some wonderful things about this country that, you know, the notion of all men are created equal, actually, if it could be realized that is a beautiful thing. And so, like, asking people, which is, in fact what I am asking, asking people to fight for their own right, to be fully invested citizens of this country while at the same time transforming what the country is on a deeply, deeply fundamental level. Because, like, this country has been imperialist from, you know, from its founding. It's a high bar. It's a high bar. It's a very, very, very high bar. I think it's a necessary bar, but it's a. I can't tell you another group that's actually done that. Maybe somewhere there is, you know, maybe people know, but that, like, you're fighting two things at the same time, you know, and that. That's, you know, great, great. You know, it's very difficult to try to integrate into something while transforming the thing at the same time.

[Sam Cedar]

Does class play any role in those who. Who don't have that same recognition of what maybe the past, what kind of responsibility they have in the present?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Possibly, possibly. I mean, I, you know, I don't like the people who I, you know, I've cited. Their class origins are diverse. You know, you can't really draw a straight line from Fannie Lou Hamer through Coretta Scott King, through, you know, W.E.B. du Bois. I. I mean, I guess this is not, you know, I guess this is somewhat, to some extent, class. I do think that not having access to resources, as black people tend not to be, and certainly as, you know, working class and poor black people tend not to be, means that you just see less of the world, you know, and then at the same time, I mean, like the question you asked me, you know, at the beginning or not at the beginning, just a few questions ago. And yet those who actually see more of the world are not necessarily always transformed by it, you know, So I don't know. I don't know, and I literally don't know. Like, I'm not trying to, you know, bat away your question, but look, there are people who write these kind of pieces because they have reached a definitive answer. And I've never been that kind of, you know, journalist myself, you know, I mean, this is a process, you know, that, as I said, began like three years ago, you know, that I'm in the midst of, you know, and if I'm doing it right, and, you know, we talk in another three years, you know, I'll have a deeper and more complicated answer.

[Sam Cedar]

Do you think that your politics have changed or to what extent have they changed, would you say, over the past couple of decades?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Yeah, I mean, they had to. They had to. You know, what I would say is, you know, my father was in the Black Panther Party. You know, my mom was, you know, you know, had her own set of radicalism herself was, you know, the first person, you know, had taught me to read. And reading was an act of liberation. I mean, the first person who I heard about the notion that maybe something was going wrong and it was some sort of, you know, behavioral, you know, issue, some issue of oppression. And it was like sitting there with my dad watching the evening news. But the problem is, there is so much about the world that you hear within your community when you're young that because we don't have the resources, we don't then therefore have access to the science and the information to back up those resources. And so, you know, I go off to college, I go off to become a writer. You know, I went to a lot of. You know, I ended up working for a lot of elite institutions where they did know how to produce the kind of journalism that I'm producing now. I had to learn from them, because there was no black radical publication that, for instance, could support the work that I had to do to write the case for reparations. That's really expensive work, man. It actually costs a lot of money to tell a writer that for the next year and a half, this is all you have to care about. You go read about this. You go to Chicago as many times as you want. You interview as many people as you want. You know, it's only a certain few places where you can go to learn how to do that. And I guess one of the more shocking things is, you know, like to do all of that research, to do the reading, to do the reporting, and for it to bring you back, you know, to your dad's living room, you know, where maybe folks analysis was not the most sophisticated, but their basic moral sense was right, you know, and if it's one thing that I probably regret, I mean, regret is the strong word, but it's the word I have right now. If there's one thing that I regret in a process of coming to consciousness was the notion that somehow knowledge dictates morality, that because people can know things, they will necessarily have a moral outcome. And so, therefore, because I was working around people at different points in my career whose vocabulary was larger than mine, who maybe didn't have my Baltimore accent, who had been to places that I had not been. Like my mom's analysis of Israel, Palestine would be, oh, the Palestinians are the blacks. That's what she Would say, right? And you would say, oh, that's somebody who had been there or knew about what would say. That's not, you know, sophisticated enough. Because this. This. This isn't that. At the end of the day, my mom was right, though.

[Sam Cedar]

Right?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Like, morally, my mom was correct. You know what I'm saying? Like, she might not have the vocabulary, and she might not have, you know, never been there, but that these people who have traveled the world, you know, have been in war zones, you know, covered crises, read books that, you know, I, you know, had not read, spoke languages that I did not speak, you know what I mean, had been in rooms that I had not been in. That my mom's morality, you know, was not just. And my dad's morality was not, you know, just the thing that should be, you know, the guiding starter. Actually. It in some ways mattered more, you know, than the knowledge. That was not a thing I knew, and that was not a thing that, you know, I was aware of. And I guess I say that I don't regret it, because when I try to think about how this could have went another way, I mean, I regret it because that's the emotion I have. I have an emotion of regret. But, Sam, when I try to chart a path by which I become somebody who can answer the questions that I have about the world in a way that is sufficient to me, that satisfies my own curiosity. I don't know how else this goes, you know?

[Sam Cedar]

Ta Nehisi Coates, the pieces Did Kamala Harris's Silence on Gaza cost her the White House, though that title was sort of updated. Updated. We had to do it. That is the. That is the. The. You gotta get y' all to read, man. Exactly. Get y' all to read. Exactly. It's a tremendous piece. Really appreciate your time. We, of course, will link to that at Majority FM and in the YouTube and podcast descriptions. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Big fans of your work.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Hey, thank you for your questions. I don't. I don't. These are not questions I normally get asked, so thank you for that.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I appreciate that.

[Sam Cedar]

All right, folks, that's it for us in the first half of the program. Today we will head into the fun half of the program, wherein we will have fun.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

We will.

[Sam Cedar]

So much fun. So much fun.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

I think we should just rest on our laurels for the guests we have.

[Sam Cedar]

I was just thinking this week, we did have amazing guests this week.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

True

[Sam Cedar]

guest.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

And I was like moeen and Asted in one day.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

And we. And I Remember I walked out of the office. I was like damn, that was a great show. Then Tuesday, who do we have?

[Sam Cedar]

I can't even remember.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

We're testing our.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm not like exactly.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Wednesday I missed the Morris

[Sam Cedar]

instead we had six weeks ago. That's what it feels like to me.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Tuesday was Rick Perlstein.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Right.

[Sam Cedar]

Only a best selling historian.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yep.

[Sam Cedar]

Morris Katz on Wednesday.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Which I was so bummed to miss.

[Sam Cedar]

I. I knew I was. I actually honestly thought that you were gonna be in here.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Like I told you I had a haircut.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

No, no, no. I know you're gonna cancel everything.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Well it's.

[Sam Cedar]

Somebody said that's a best of interview we've got. We've had people say that the whole week of best rolled the week.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Yes. I just updated the best of with

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

a bunch and we interviewed the DSA co chairs yesterday as well as Tracy. But you know, the DSA coachers had a lot to to say in New York City and triumphant week. Yeah, I saw that. Breaking points also got them.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

So Tracy's reporting is incredible. I don't know if I could put it in the best of because it is the most infuriating story ever.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Such an infuriating story. But yeah, we kind of killed it this week. So Pat's on the back for us.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

Join the Majorityport.com that's right.

[Sam Cedar]

You can help this program survive and thrive and keep on thriving with what we're doing. I tried to come up with another I've and all I had was jive Surviving. I said survive and thrive.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

Oh, surviving.

[Sam Cedar]

Like you want us to keep on driving the dry drive.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Folks. Join the majority report.com join the majority report.com also check out the am quickie am quickie.com you get news stories three days a week for free in your email box. And also our new streamlined Instagram handle which is Majority fm. On Instagram whenever I have to put

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

in for press credentials I have to put all our handles in and I fill them out for most of you guys. And I have to search every. I had to search every time. I was like what's the TikTok? What's the YouTube?

[Sam Cedar]

What's the Instagram? Now we all know Majority FM and I will say I am getting a lot of great feedback on my Instagram account. All I'm doing is hitting accept and I have no idea. People are like are messaging like you put up a post and I'm like

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I did Gino put up the post for you?

[Sam Cedar]

No, I'm doing.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I know you're clicking. Accept. I know you're just not making the. I'm sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

Sorry.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I was agreeing with you.

[Sam Cedar]

No, you said Gino is doing.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Gino picked up the toddler and put him on the toilet. But Sam used the toilet.

[Sam Cedar]

I made the poop.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Somehow it always comes back to this.

[Sam Cedar]

It was Brian's fault.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

I know. This time it wasn't my fault.

[Sam Cedar]

Anyways, majority FM. And of course in the podcast and YouTube descriptions we have all of our Instagram handles. You can follow us on. On TikTok. You can follow us on Facebook. Maybe you have some grandparents who really need to hear some of this stuff, turn them on to us on Facebook and of course, wherever you are, give us a good review or I don't know what. Also just coffee co op, fair trade coffee. Use a coupon code. Majority get 10% off. You can buy the majority port blend. Matt, what's happening?

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

Yeah, in 98 minutes, 97 minutes, new episode of Jacobin show will be coming on right at 3:00 Eastern Time. We're talking with Astra Taylor about democracy and Alex Brunzini, vendor about the era of Hamilton. Both have articles in the new issue of Jacobin on America's great 250th birthday celebration. And so we're talking about that sort of stuff. So check that out right after the show today. Follow me on Instagram at matlak. Whoa.

[Sam Cedar]

Okay. Get your own plug for the Instagram. Matt's heavily invested in this, folks. How far are you from 10,000? Let's just do this.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

435. I think the math right.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Come on.

[Sam Cedar]

You know, you know what your problem is? You're not doing posts enough.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

That is unironically true. Not doing that many posts.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

But I did.

[Sam Cedar]

What are you doing? Too many stories. I did a big London post.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

I'm doing too much scrolls on the for you page.

[Sam Cedar]

What's that?

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Nothing.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

It's all right.

[Sam Cedar]

What does that mean?

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

It's just his algorithm is feeding him hot girls. That's what he's saying.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Vital man.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

That's what he's saying. Because we Sometimes use your TikTok, Matt, so we see what you're asking.

[Sam Cedar]

Make sure I don't go over on that. You know what I would suggest to you? Unboxings.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, you know, to spice it up. Yeah, you're a couple unboxings away from 10,000 view followers, buddy.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

Oh, me do the unboxing. Okay.

[Sam Cedar]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I need to buy some new lab mics. Yep.

[Sam Cedar]

You should do an unboxing with that. Battery backup. So that people understand why, despite the. The fact that we've got really the

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

type of crowd I'm trying.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

That sounds as hot as mad's for you, Page.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Kind of amperage. We talking on this baby?

[Sam Cedar]

Suit yourself. But you don't want to alienate the unboxing community in the way you just did. That's going to come back and bite you in the ass. Okay, folks, we'll see you.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

One word.

[Sam Cedar]

Unabomber.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

His last unboxing.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

All right.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Sorry.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

All right.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

We are.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

I wanted to go home. I guess we're still doing another half of the show. Sorry.

[Sam Cedar]

Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. And I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now. And I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now, but I think around 18 months out, we're gonna look back and go like, wow.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

What?

[Sam Cedar]

What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. Hold on for a second. Emma. Welcome to the program. What is up, everyone? Fun pack.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

No.

[Sam Cedar]

Mickey, you did it. Fun half.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Let's go, Brandon.

[Sam Cedar]

Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint everyone. I'm just a random guy. It's all the boys today.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Fundamentally false. No. I'm sorry.

[Unknown Male Guest 2]

Women.

[Sam Cedar]

Stop talking for a second and let me finish.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Where is this coming from? Dude?

[Sam Cedar]

But.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Dude, you want to smoke this?

[Sam Cedar]

7A.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Yes.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Hi. Me is me. Yes.

[Sam Cedar]

Is this me?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Is it me?

[Sam Cedar]

It is you?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Is this me? Hello?

[Sam Cedar]

Is this me? I think it is you. Who is.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

You

[Sam Cedar]

know. Sound. Every single freaking day. What's on your mind?

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Sports.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

We can discuss free market. And we can discuss capitalism.

[Sam Cedar]

I'm gonna go throw it. Libertarians. They're so stupid. Though common sense says. Of course.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Gobbledygook.

[Sam Cedar]

We nailed him.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

So what's 79 plus 21?

[Sam Cedar]

Challenge.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Man, I'm positively quivering.

[Sam Cedar]

I believe 96.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

I want to say.

[Sam Cedar]

8, 5, 7, 2, 1, 0. 8, 5, 5, 0, 11 half. 3, 8, 9, 11.

[Unknown Female Guest 2]

For instance.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

$3,400. $1900. 5, 4, 3.

[Sam Cedar]

$3 trillion.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Sold.

[Sam Cedar]

It's a zero sum game.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Actually. You're making me think less.

[Sam Cedar]

But let me say this. You call it satire.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Sam goes satire. On top of it all.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

My favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Without a doubt.

[Sam Cedar]

Hey, buddy. We see you. All right, folks, Folks, folks.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

It's just the week being weeded out. Obviously.

[Unknown Female Guest 1]

Yeah.

[Sam Cedar]

Sun's out, guns out. I. I don't know.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

But you should know,

[Sam Cedar]

people just don't

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

like to entertain ideas anymore.

[Sam Cedar]

I have a question. Who cares?

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Our chat is enabled, folks.

[Sam Cedar]

I love it. I do love that look. Gotta jump, gotta be quick. I gotta jump. I'm losing it, bro. Two o', clock, we're already late, and the guy's being a dick. So screw him. Sent to a gulag.

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Outrageous.

[Sam Cedar]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[Unknown Male Guest 1]

Love you. Bye.

[Sam Cedar]

Love you.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Bye.

[Sam Cedar]

Bye.