{"id":71963,"date":"2015-07-31T13:19:20","date_gmt":"2015-07-31T21:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=71963"},"modified":"2015-07-31T13:34:24","modified_gmt":"2015-07-31T21:34:24","slug":"the-wit-wisdom-of-ta-nehisi-coates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=71963","title":{"rendered":"The Wit & Wisdom Of Ta-Nehisi Coates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Comments to Steve Sailer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

* I think I\u2019ve figured out why Ta constantly repeats the phrase \u201cblack bodies\u201d.<\/p>\n

The phrase doesn\u2019t have any real meaning because it doesn\u2019t add any information. Replacing \u201cblack bodies\u201d with simpler phrases such as \u201cblacks\u201d conveys the actual information more simply and directly.<\/p>\n

But Ta\u2019s objective is not to convey information. Rather, Ta\u2019s purpose is poetic. He is trying to create a tribal bonding experience with the hypnotic repetition of various images, phrases, chants, and tokens.<\/p>\n

Ta uses \u201cblack bodies\u201d as a poetic trope. The phrase stretches out the word \u201cblack\u201d from one syllable to three syllables. It is also alliterative. The phrase \u201cblack bodies\u201d also has a syncopated rhythm, because the emphasis falls on the second syllable. To see this, repeatedly chant the phrase to a 4\/4 rhythm with a rest on the fourth beat. \u201cBlack \u2013 BOD \u2013 ies \u2013 [pause], Black \u2013 BOD \u2013 ies \u2013 [pause], Black \u2013 BOD \u2013 ies \u2013 [pause]; etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

His repetition of the phrase \u201cpeople who think they are white\u201d has a similar poetic purpose. It stretches out the single word \u201cwhite\u201d while insulting whites with every repetition.<\/p>\n

He can fill vast stretches of prose by concatenating such stretched-out phrases.<\/p>\n

Homer used many such repeated, meaningless phrases. For instance, he often wrote \u201che spoke forth winged words\u201d rather than just \u201che said\u201d. When describing various characters, he pads out the text by repeating descriptions of each character whenever the character is mentioned. For instance, Achilles is often called \u201cswift-footed Achilles\u201d, even when Achilles is not doing anything swift-footed at that moment. (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Epithets_in_Homer)<\/p>\n

Preachers often use the repetition of overblown phrases to stretch out their sermons because their objective is not to convey information, but to induce a religious trance via repetition. Similarly, Ta\u2019s main purpose is not to convey information. Indeed, most of the purported \u201cinformation\u201d in his essays is nonsense. (He seems to chant obviously false memes such as \u201cthe Ferguson murder\u201d to signal that truth is irrelevant to him.)<\/p>\n

* People like TNC, Masha Gessen, Amy Chua, etc are kind of shorthand character sketches for the different ethno-identity politic strains current in this country. I also suspect that as many here have a bit of a Tom Wolfish kind of bent, identifying amusing prototypes make the discussion more fun.<\/p>\n

* African Americans really have a difficult hand to play. They can go with the flow and blame all their problems on white racism. That\u2019s easy, and absolves them of all responsibility, but also means they will always depend on the kindness of strangers. On the other hand, they can listen to Booker T. Washington, Bill Cosby, and Louis Farrakhan who advise them to study hard, stay off drugs, don\u2019t have out-of-wedlock kids, police themselves, and invest in their own community. But in the cold light of day, they know those things aren\u2019t really going to work out. Most are not going to do well in school, aren\u2019t going to adequately defer gratification, and aren\u2019t going to be successful in business. So that route just leads to a realization of their own inability to keep up or compete. Which leads them back to blaming whitey as the more palatable explanation.<\/p>\n

* Does anybody know how TNC got his break? Who picked him out of obscurity and started putting his thoughts and his words out there in the mainstream? How did he go from being a nobody to being a featured somebody? Wikipedia doesn\u2019t tell me, and I\u2019m reluctant to disappear down the rabbit hole of TNC info online, so I\u2019m hoping someone knows and can tell me.<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t think \u2014 not even FOR A SECOND \u2014 that my question is motivated by anything like bitterness over the fact that, even though I\u2019m a clearer writer than TNC and a smarter and more original culture-observer, during my decades in the media biz no one ever plucked me out of obscurity, threw money at me, and put me out there as a featured thinker. Nope, doesn\u2019t bother me A BIT that TNC is making a living for himself (and no doubt enjoying the spotlight) complaining about how rough it is for him to be black when he\u2019s had a very nice gig fall in his lap at a still-young age while dozens if not hundreds of equally good (actually better, IMHO) writers have never had anything like his luck \u2026<\/p>\n

Why on earth does TNC think he has had it so hard when, as a writer, he has basically won the lottery? Forget me \u2014 how about Steve Sailer? As a writer, who\u2019s had it (and continues to have it) rougher: TNC, or Steve?<\/p>\n

* Perhaps the Talented Tenth is unique among elites in that their legacy has become dysfunction, even if we call it suffering, and they\u2019ve become very stubborn about protecting that legacy because it\u2019s invaluable\u2013the perception that black Americans have suffered uniquely among peoples has them dominating politics and culture; not despite a history of failure but because of it. It\u2019s the greatest con ever. But I think it\u2019s one of the reasons the SJWs won\u2019t yield their image of blacks but from cold, dead hands. Conventional thinking on race doesn\u2019t exaggerate the problem, it inverts it. Reverse the arrow of causation, reverse the arrow of moral responsibility. It isn\u2019t that white America cannot honor its debt to blacks because the sins are too profound, it\u2019s that black America can\u2019t honor its end of the bargain\u2013to become peaceful and productive\u2013due to a lack of human capital and will.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a proven political model, adopted to all manner of newcomers. Some angry, Suge Knight type guy should be fuming through his cigar right now over how the brothers aren\u2019t getting paid for this.<\/p>\n

* NC is in the spirit of the age, and has the right views and ancestry to be loved by the Powers That Be, corrupt though they are. As Steve himself has said, if Obama had been Indonesian rather than black, who would have ever heard of him again? He was able to play on the history of this country and its ambivalent attitude toward blacks to his favor; he was also able to come in at a time when the opposition party had been discredited by war and recession.<\/p>\n

Success comes to those who can please the powerful. That is always as it has been. Nobody honors lonely truth-tellers like Steve, but for their small circle. And remember that even if you do play all your cards right and stroke all the right egos, you may still fail before some snake whose serpent\u2019s tongue is more skillfully slimy than yours. That is the \u2018chance\u2019 in \u2018time and chance happeneth to them all\u2019.<\/p>\n

* Blacks know instinctively, and correctly, they are not going to ever be \u201cwhite\u201d in their thinking or behavior, even as they know instinctively, and correctly, that \u201cwhite\u201d behavior and thinking is, or would be, better for themselves, their families, and their community.<\/p>\n

In that they are more honest than most white people, who live in a sort of fantasy that they can be successful entrepreneurs, or come out \u201cahead\u201d in the game in some other way, usually until they are in their forties or fifties when reality finally sets in. I used to think all the time I would be this bigtime this or that, even well into my thirties, and supported libertarian and business-conservative ideas to a fault. That\u2019s why I voted Republican all those years. That\u2019s why I turned down union or government jobs that would have given me a defined benefit pension and 9 to 5, forty hour stability. In 1955 or 1965 my thinking would have probably given me a lot more interesting life and a decent retirement too, but having been born in the sixties, not so much.<\/p>\n

So blacks, at least, are acting in a sort of rational self interest, within the limits of their ability to think rationally. Whites choose not to do so and for that reason we are in trouble. if whites acted in terms of rational group self interest most of our issues would be fixed in five years. We\u2019d secure the border, throw illegals out, reduce legal immigration to very little or none, tariff Chinese imports, and to put it bluntly we\u2019d make black dysfunctionality so unpleasant for blacks they\u2019d self-segregate or emigrate. We\u2019d reduce their political power by requiring a voting test and we\u2019d shut down any black church whose minister even hinted how his parishioners were supposed to vote as we do with the IRS to white ministers.<\/p>\n

* David Carr, the recently deceased NYT writer, hired Coates at the DC City paper. He worked there with Jake Tapper & some other media notables today. Then Andrew Sullivan hired him at the New Republic.<\/p>\n

* He\u2019s black, he says the right things the ruling elite like to hear and read, he got noticed by the right people at the right time and viola! He\u2019s a porch monkey or kept man for the white establishment.<\/p>\n

You ever see the organ grinder and the monkey? The establishment is the organ grinder and the big named writers are the monkeys who dance(write) to the tune of the grinder. That\u2019s all he is. It\u2019s really nothing to aspire to. He\u2019s just too stupid to notice what he is.<\/p>\n

And if he ever gets a conscience and says things that the establishment doesn\u2019t like such as securing the borders and supporting tariffs to bring back American jobs, he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

In this era, it\u2019s not quality or competence that counts, it\u2019s holding the right ideology \u2013 that opens the doors. Holding the wrong ideology will get them closed on you real fast, even if you are popular. Just ask Lou Dobbs or Perot.<\/p>\n

* If some confident and unapologetic person like Trump were to announce that kicking out illegals and stopping mass legal immigration is a litmus test of national loyalty, I think we\u2019d be pleasantly surprised by the number of blacks responding to that nativist appeal and the number of viva-la-raza triumphalists who would find it prudent to shut the hell up. (And, of course, the number of whites voting to save their country.)<\/p>\n

* The real reason to condemn people like Michael Brown is because you want to deliver the lesson to your kids that you shouldn\u2019t knock over convenience stores and then attack police officers. It\u2019s rather dangerous for a community to make a hero out of someone like that. On the other hand, being honest about his self-destructive behavior would have robbed all the force out of a campaign against police violence that may yet result in some positive effect.<\/p>\n

* Blacks heavily depend on the government to redistribute economic resources from whites over to them via welfare and affirmative action. Without affirmative action almost the entire black middle class wouldn\u2019t exist and without welfare lots of underclass blacks would starve to death or have to work low paying unpleasant menial jobs. They\u2019ll never support the Republican party in large numbers because of that and taking socially conservative positions on things like gay marriage won\u2019t change that.<\/p>\n

* Go to the front page at Yahoo and read through the headlines. A pattern quickly becomes apparent. Blacks in this country are under siege, they are being attacked on all fronts. They are being gunned down by police, denied opportunities to find employment, forced into substandard housing, vilified by the press, scapegoated for crime, and being discriminated against at every turn. <\/p>\n

* \u201cThere is here the failure to identify the profound difference between aristocracy and the African Big Man model of cronyism.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a very important point. When I began seriously thinking about Negro culture, society and politics (starting about fifteen years ago) one of the first things I noticed was the ubiquity of the \u201cbig man\u201d model of social and political structure. Whenever and where ever there is a Negro community, one finds that community organizing around some one leader who represents the community to the outside world, more or less runs the community according to his whim at every level, and get\u2019s a lion\u2019s share of community resources. Usually the man is surrounded by a phalanx of men and women who act as his flunkies but inherit some of his charisma\/power when dealing with ordinary members of the community. The universal existence of women in this coterie \u2013 sometimes to the entire exclusion of men \u2013 seems to be unique to Negro social organization. The women are not always sexual consorts of but do adulate the big man. This pattern seems universal from African tribes, chiefdoms and kingdoms through the local religious leaders that are ubiquitous in the USA, Caribbean, and the Guyannas and Brazil.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve decided that this must have something to do with Negro psychology. When better than 80% of a population have below USA average IQs, levels of self-control, linternal discount rates, and time horizons; and an apparently high innate propensity towards violence it makes sense to have things run by one of the most intelligent members of the community. And it makes further sense that this big man would exploit his position to the maximum possible extent. For Negroes this form of organization may be a feature not a bug. One more reason why it seems to me impossible to integrate Whites and Negroes into one common socio-political system that will satisfy the needs of the majorities of each race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Comments to Steve Sailer: * I think I\u2019ve figured out why Ta constantly repeats the phrase \u201cblack bodies\u201d. The phrase doesn\u2019t have any real meaning because it doesn\u2019t add any information. Replacing \u201cblack bodies\u201d with simpler phrases such as \u201cblacks\u201d … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,161],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blacks","category-immigration"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t