The Prosecution of Ta-Nehisi Coates During an Inconvenient Genocide

In this week’s episode of Democracy-Ish, Danielle Moodie and I spend our half hour unpacking the unhinged prosecution of writer Ta-Nehisi Coates by CBS Morning host Tony Dokoupil to reflect on whose lives matter, whose voices are elevated, and what stories are allowed to be told in America during an ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Coates is on a publicity tour promoting his latest book The Message which includes a chapter about his visit to the occupied West Bank. Like most of us who have visited Hebron, we return horrified by the apartheid conditions and ask why the U.S. government would support such an open policy of discrimination. For his efforts, Dokoupil said Coates’ book would be found in the backpack of an extremist and essentually accused him of being an anti-semite who was unfairly criticizing Israel. Sit with that for a second. I read the book last night and found nothing extreme or radical outside of what’s already been published by numerous Americans, and Israeli soldiers, who have shared similar reflections and observations. This is all well-known around the world and especially in human rights’ circles.

Thankfully, Coates was able to respond with grace and a moral clarity saying that he doesn’t believe in ethnocracies. He also mentioned the lack of Palestinian voices in American media who don’t have an outlet to share their stories as compared to Israeli perspectives that are platformed. He mentioned Israel’s apartheid system which gives preference to Jewish citizens above all else and asked, “Why do we support that? Why is it OK?” Dokoupil, whose ex-wife and kids are in Israel, had no response or any justification or rationalization for Israel’s occupation and racist policies towards Palestinians.

This conversation is not happening in a vaccum but during an ongoing war, which many Democrats consider a genocide, that has claimed over 43,000 Palestinian lives - mostly civilian. Bibi’s war has now expanded to Lebanon, the West Bank, and Israel is open to bombing Iran. In a press conference today, President Biden remained complicit and unwilling to change his policy. “No administration has helped Israel more than I have,” he said, and added, “... And whether [Netanyahu is] trying to influence the election or not, I don't know, but I'm not counting on that." That’s a wild statement to make three weeks before an election in which Bibi and his extremist cabinet have openly signalled they want Trump to win.

But this is where we are, because Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim lives just don’t matter to the Biden Administration and many establishment Democrats and liberals who can’t understand why people would be morally outraged and not vote for what they consider to be a genocide. A poll relased by the Arab American Insistute shocked many with the results which reveal Arab American voters are influeced by the Gaza War and Trump retains a slight edge over Harris. Obviously, as I’ve argued relentlessly, there is no both sides and Trump is far worse on Gaza and every other issue. But voters are human beings, and human beings are emotional. The Harris campaign has gone out of its way to offend Arab, Muslim and uncommitted voters by not including a single Palestinian speaker at the DNC and also not mentioning the numerous civilian casualties in Lebanon.

The bar is low, folks. So low that it’s in hell. Some voters just need to hear that their pain is being acknowledged and their lives matter. But, with the election three weeks away, the political calculus has decided that these lives and voices don’t matter and Democrats shouldn’t touch, let alone criticize, Israel’s reckless “de-escalation through escalation” policy which is a recipe for disaster.

However, you can’t ignore a genocide, no matter how inconvenient. Thanks to a growing multi-racial and multi-faith coalition critical of Israel’s actions, Democrats can no longer ignore the occupation either. Coates has used his immense social equity to comment on this issue and link the oppression of one people abroad in solidarity with the oppression of Black people at home.

Eventually, the question will have to be answered: “Why do we support [this]? Why is it ok?”