Nation and Race and Ta-Nehisi Coates
21st July 2026
Long before the African-American writer Ta-Nehisi Coates began vilifying Israel—which started right after Hamas massacred 1200 Israelis—and long before he began vilifying Charlie Kirk—which started right after Kirk was murdered—some commentators were expressing serious concerns about the celebrated status Coates had attained in elite American culture. Before 2020, for example, left-leaning black academic John McWhorter and right-leaning white columnist David French both said Coates’ ornate prose really just concealed an utter hatred of white people, which was unworthy of acclaim.
Finding hatred in Coates, who mused that the 343 firefighters and 72 police officers killed in the 2001 World Trade Center attack were “menaces of nature” and “not human to me,” was easy. It didn’t matter, though. Coatesmania reigned, and his books became best-sellers, the literary awards piled up, and his presence dominated high school syllabi.
David French is ‘right-leaning’? News to me—and, I suspect, the other ‘right-leaning’ people in America.