Ta-Nehisi Coates on being "a snob"

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/573/status-update?act=2#play

 

Thanks for posting. Listening now.

P.S.: Great piece. Thought-provoking, especially the friend's mixed feelings on Ta-Nehisi's success. I thought he was really candid.

 

I've heard that last Saturday. His friend had a problem with it. I don't know why since his friend who blew up did not change.

 

yeah the story ended w/out either party on top. Was the interviewer/friend the protagonist or vice-versa? Are we cool with Coates, the next "James Baldwin," being a snob or not? He's fine with it. His friend maybe not?

 

True Satchmo. If I have a friend who is livin large and hugely famous,I will not be jealous of his/her success.

 

Actress Talullah Bankhead was known to be a snob on set and off. During the making of the film Lifeboat, she had a lot of comments about her fellow castmates, but the target of her rage was actor Walter Slezak who played the German U-boat commander rescued by the lifeboat survivors. Slezak was from Austria and Bankhead labeled him a Nazi after they invaded Poland. Slezak took the jabs with a grain of salt. Bankhead was also known for not wearing panties under her clothes. The rest of the cast on a 20 foot long lifeboat raised 10 feet high in front of a screen, noticed that, too. They complained to director Alfred Hitchcock. Bankhead followed Hitchcock's direction and complied. Tallulah Bankhead, according to Hitchcock, was a snob and he loved that quality about her. I guess snobbery can be tolerated by some people(those who know that person well enough).

 

I picture some chemistry between Bankhead and Slezak -- I'm so finding this film. Bankhead just might be a feminist hero: accuse a guy of being a Nazi and then show your pussy. Or as Hictchock put it: a snob.

 

I enjoyed that flick because it included Canada Lee. Strangely,he was not among the people who beat up and killed the Nazi. He tried without success to get the slave wording changed for the radio version of Lifeboat.

 

How Canada Lee was cast was due to the fact that Hitchcock liked his face. He was also aware of the image of black men in America and the struggles they face. Lee's character was a good guy but he was also a pick-pocket and he was trying to leave that part of his life out. When the attack on the Nazi occurrence, he wanted nothing to do with it. It simply said that killing and murder are the last nasty resort of white people. Slezak was a man who was prepared and somewhat more equipped than the other survivors. He was an example of the Master Race. The actress who played the army nurse asked Hitchcock what her best side was. Hitchcock replied," You're sitting on it."

 

One of my good friends from school a few years ago is pretty famous now, writing and blogging and traveling the world...but she's awesome in general so I'm not even mad at all. Hell when I met her way back when I wouldn't have been shocked if someone had told me that she'd be famous one day.

Meanwhile I'm wasting away here in the South and wondering when I am going to finally burn out for good. At least I have my health?

 

Ta-Nehisi Coates :smt042

Fuck kinda' name is that.?

Leave the African names alone unless it's your LAST NAME.

 

I thought it was some sort of afrocentric ancient egyptian name...

Anyway, has anyone here read any of his stuff? I listened to an NPR interview recently with the guy and I wasn't very impressed.

The interview centered on a "letter to his son" in which Coates spelled out to his son that cops and race-monsters and such have the tacit right to inflict violence against him...

So I'm thinking so what else is new?

What's the point of spelling out stuff like that without offering some answers? To be fair, maybe his book is chock full of answers (I haven't read it), but I wish the interviewer had asked him "so what are your solutions"? That would be the interesting part...

...Because the problems are nothing new at all... Coates is billed as this generation's James Baldwin, yet the problems are the same that Baldwin cataloged... Any new answers?

:smt115

 

His last name cancels out his first name.


African first names look stupid when you have an Irish(or any other) last name.

Like Kwame Kilpatrick:smt042

What is that?

An African Leprechaun or some shit?

 

True. If you want to go "afrocentric", drop the name of the dude who bought and sold your forefathers... :mrgreen: Either way, it's kinda pointless...

 

Best post I've read lately.

Yeah I'll confess I never heard of him. I posted his interview hoping to impress ya'll.

The "any new answers?" question goes for most every issue today as far as I'm concerned.

Everyone wants to rule the world.

Interesting post.

 

:smt042 :smt042 :smt042 :smt042 :smt042 :smt042 :smt042

 

Did Baldwin offer answers? I think some writers' gift is to expose issues the world at large in a way that appeals to that wtiter's generation. True, he may be covering ground previously covered by those who wrote before him. But, is the current generation reading or even aware of those authors? But, if his work engages their minds in ways the older generations of authors hasn't, then his work his valuable wether he provides answers or not. Wether he is original or not. The minds an author touches with his or her wiwords will begin to formulate answers all their own. The writer is often the cause. The reader and his or her actions are the effect.

With that said, I haven't read his work. Or, Baldwin for that matter. So, I have no idea if the comparisons are valid.

 

James Baldwin was gay and lived in Greenwich Village and Europe. Is this man gay? If so, he shouldn't be considered to be this generation's James Baldwin.

 

[quote="flaminghetero, post: 994960"]Ta-Nehisi Coates :smt042

Fuck kinda' name is that.?

Leave the African names alone unless it's your LAST NAME.[/QUOTE]

 

Maybe, that's just what he was named. Or, he wants to keep the family name to honir his parents. Nothing wrong with having an African first name and an American last name.

What I hate are those made up names with no meaning to them other than his or her ghetto ass parents like how they sound.

A child's name should have meaning.