Every story is imbued with the biographies of those who hear and repeat it. And so each story gets distorted some. We can lose the author’s original intent.
It’s fitting then that I came to assume that Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new collection of essays published in the fall — one year after the Hamas attack on Israel — was exclusively about the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Notably including a CBS Morning interview, what I heard about the book was centered on the conflict.
Instead “The Message” is a curated archive of private reflections and political commentary informed by short trips Coates took to several locations to reflect on race, justice and U.S. foreign policy. Just the final chapter features a few days he spent in Israel and Palestine. The book’s overall message is less about any single conflict and more what he describes as a moral responsibility of the writer to speak plainly in moments of great public consequence.
Below my notes.
Continue reading The Message by Ta Nehisi Coates