"The Message": Ta-Nehisi Coates on Power of Writing & Visiting Senegal, South Carolina, Palestine

[Uncle Joe]

We speak with the acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, whose book The Message features three essays tackling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, book bans and academic freedom, and the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade. The Message is written as a letter to Coates's students at Howard University, where he is the Sterling Brown Endowed Chair in the English department. As part of the research for the book, Coates traveled to Senegal and visited the island of Gorée, often the last stop for captured Africans before they were shipped to the Americas as enslaved people. Coates also visited a schoolteacher in South Carolina who faced censorship for teaching Coates's previous book, _Between the World and Me_, an experience he says showed him the power of organizing. "That, too, is about the power of stories. That, too, is about the power of narratives, the questions we ask and the questions we don't," Coates says of the community's response.
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8-9 a.m. ET.

[murielm99]

1. So now we have THREE of these

worthless Democracy Not things on the front page?

[Uncle Joe]

2. It's so ironic when people condemn the free press actually practicing the 1st Amendment as "not being democracy."

90% of the speaking time is used by Democracy Now's guests; experts in various fields and subjects, also people with their real life experience (s) and not professional corporate paid for pundits and interviewers loaded with conflicts of interest. Amy Goodman and the other interviewers primarily just ask the questions

Do you miss slews of commercials from the corporate media news eating up precious airtime or are you intimidated by people using their critical thinking skills?

Just because you don't like, or disagree with the message (s) doesn't mean that it's not democracy, quite the opposite. If everyone had to tow the line on the free flow of information we would be *rump's wet dream; a dictatorship.

Democracy Now has the perfect name for the times and is needed now more than ever.

[Gaugamela]

3. Have a nice Thanksgiving, Muriel!