The Opening of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message

Happy New Year. I say this knowing times are going to be tough and we have to genuinely wish each other well. No one really knows what is going to happen in the U.S. starting the 20th. We do know that 1) people are really hurting & need society and government to be better 2) blaming the vulnerable for everything–what in any other country we would readily call the oppressed–is not a solution as much as a call to unending, implacable anger.

Mr. Rogers said to "look for the helpers." I would add that we know we're on the right path when we're doing all we can to empower the helpers. For example, when people ask for resources to make winter kits so others can stay warm, that serves as a perfect opportunity to give in abundance. Let the helpers know you have their back. Watch as the trust we need to have a functional society grows.

Some causes which could use more support (all recommended by Mariame Kaba):

• Detention Watch Network – there's an interview with Silky Shah which goes into depth about how immigrant detention ties into the criminalization of everything. It is also well worth hearing what life in detention is like; warning: these stories are quite brutal.
• REBUILD – free culturally competent therapy for the formerly incarcerated. You can read the 2024 Impact Report, where they were able to connect 475 people to therapists.
• Abortion funds – these are a must. Women are dying from complications of pregnancy all the time in certain states. We don't have accurate numbers because the cases are being suppressed. While it is important to give locally, it is worth supporting the Palmetto State Abortion Fund.

I should mention that for 2025 I'd like to have a lot more subscribers. If you can help me reach that goal, I'd appreciate that. Let me know if you promote this newsletter or if you want to give a quote about how you appreciate the content. Thank you all for being here. I'm happy to have your readership and support.

Song: Tracy Chapman, "Talkin' Bout A Revolution"

God, we could talk about this forever. I feel like you can hear the younger songwriter ask with both conviction and skepticism something like this: "Everyone knows how bad this is, right? Like, when they're standing in line for a few dollars or a meal, they've got to be whispering to each other? No?"

Two things are true. Human beings can become comfortable with the worst, most dehumanizing set of conditions. Abusers are everywhere, continuing to do terrible things to others with the argument that nothing could possibly be better. It's also true that if you start building power, then the whispers in lines do become real and effective. Bullies get very worried when their victims find and help each other.

Must Reads from Elsewhere Online

At ProPublica, Joshua Kaplan's "The Militia and the Mole" isn't just a deeply reported piece about the current state of militia activity. It's essential reading for understanding what is happening while the rest of us, quite frankly, are struggling to help the helpers. You'll read about how one militia had as many 50 applicants a day not so long ago. There's plenty about the complete lack of control their members demonstrate in civil society, e.g. saying racist things on facebook or punching women in the face. I hope you'll read this soon so we can start talking about it. The worst are not only full of passionate intensity, but they're organizing and recruiting.

This, from WNYC's On the Media & Radiolab, is an incredible look at how much has changed: Do Sex Scandals Matter Anymore in Politics? You'll learn how the press kept a tight lid on JFK's and George H.W. Bush's indiscretions. How Watergate humiliated a number of journalists with access, including the White House Press Corps, and led to an obsession with character and the downfall of Gary Hart. You'll hear Cokie Roberts (!!) talk about how nothing should be off-limits when evaluating a potential President, and Brooke Gladstone explain that maybe we've learned the hard way that reporting everything is a grave distraction from what we really need to know.

The Opening of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message

Dear J. –

I wanted to talk to you about the first two pages of Ta-Nehisi Coates' The Message. When we discussed the book publicly before, we read through a later passage where Coates describes journalism as a product of the most natural curiosity. Young Coates wanted to hear more about the violence of American football. Hear the players grapple with their injuries or reflect on the moments which shattered another's life – it isn't gratuitous or unseemly to gather tough stories to take stock. By implication, it is an open question if anything like this happens in our current media environment. For example, those of us who want to make sure the vulnerable are heard face innumerable, lazy myths. E.g., "prisoners have it easy" (at least 6 of the incarcerated self-immolated in a Virginia prison recently); "U.S. healthcare works" (would you like to hear about how United Healthcare picks on autistic kids?); "anyone can find a place to live" (read about homeless seniors). These myths are propped up by channels, shows, and feeds, content visual, auditory, and written, and delivered to personal indoctrination devices.

A letter means to break through this. All of this. I don't just mean smartphones performing the function neo-Nazi newsletters had once in direct mail campaigns. I mean the infantile notions of freedom which threaten to destroy the world. Notions which only see poverty as a matter of individual responsibility as opposed to redistribution for billionaires. Notions which allow so-called adults to say they are entitled to any emotion or dubious fact. The right to radicalize because the screen made you angry. And then, here's Coates' book, framed as a letter to his students, not so much specifically but most especially a certain group he taught at Howard. I say "not so much specifically" because while much depends on the internal audience, it is obviously up to all of us to get the message.

Coates, addressing them, confides that for the longest time he has loved writing more than teaching. "But with you I found the former rivaling the latter." He attributes the origin of this to Howard. "[I]t was founded to combat the long shadow of slavery – a shadow that we understood had not yet retreated." This implied unity makes all of the writing done "political," "in service of that larger emancipatory project." Because the fight is against dehumanization, the "small and particular" is of enormous political import even in literary exercises. Coates witnesses a lack of distance between writing and politics in his students, then sees it in himself.

There are so many questions I want to ask. For both of us, teaching at a junior college, I think the primary one is: When and how can we write a letter for our classes? We've got amazing students, but it can be difficult to get a given classroom to unite. How can we conceive of shared purpose and help a community of learners achieve their identity?

Paul's epistles are to distinct communities of faith developing their own practices. Then there's the Letter to the Romans–really, everybody. That of necessity must make general theological claims, justify the ways of God to man, because the audience is everyone.

My own thought is we need something smaller. Something particular. It, whatever it may be, must locate empathy and a curiosity adjacent to empathy. Not advance anger or the logic of competition, which can distract from the enterprise of learning together which is true citizenship. E.g. you learn to become sensitive to what we need, effectuating "We the People."

Maybe instead of asking "when" and "how," I should emphasize that we write letters, dedicating ourselves to the opportunities to do so. To get us to focus on one we should address, to formalize the process of thinking through things together. I guess where I'm at right now is that the letter doesn't have to be to the class, but any class achieving what it ought has an implicit letter at its base. One, if made explicit, advances our standing.