Why is it when critics confront the American as Negro they suddenly drop their advanced critical armament and revert with an air of confident superiority to quite primitive modes of analysis?”
—Ralph Ellison, “The World and the Jug”
Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest book Between the World and Me has prompted the critical establishment to embarrass itself even more than is its wont. As I wrote earlier this week at Splice Today, the Economist and the NYT both wrote the same review of Coates’ book in which they flapped anxiously at his lack of respect for 9/11 firefighters and assured him that the world was getting better all the time because of nice establishment folks at the NYT and Economist, why oh why must he be so bitter? To follow that, Freddie de Boer spoke up for the anti-establishment establishment to insist that he did like Coates but only within limits—which is to say, he didn’t like him as much as he liked James Baldwin. DeBoer then went on to insist that the rest of the media overpraises Coates, thereby implying (in line with the anti-establishment establishment playbook) that he alone is telling it like it is and everyone else is blinded by something that sure sounds like liberal guilt, even though deBoer assures us that’s not what he means. (Posts are here and here.)
DeBoer on twitter suggested that objections to his minor critiques of Coates demonstrate his point—i.e., that Coates is overpraised. But I don’t think the resistance deBoer is meeting is because he criticized Coates. Because, as lots of folks have pointed out, there’s tons of criticism of Coates. Again, reviews in the NYT and Economist — two of the largest profile venues around—were both mixed to negative. There have also been a number of criticisms questioning his treatment of black women, notably Shani O. Hilton’s piece at Buzzfeed and a really remarkable essay by Brit Bennett at the New Yorker. I also saw Coates being taken to task in no uncertain terms earlier this week on twitter for alleged failures to reach out to black media with advanced review copies. The idea that Coates is somehow sacrosanct is simply nonsense. Though as Tressie McMillan Cottom pointed out on twitter, it might be easy to miss those critiques if you’re not reading, or considering the words of, any black writers.
And I think that’s really the frustrating thing about deBoer’s argument here. The discussion of Coates’ work, and the reception of it, is framed almost entirely in terms of the health and thought of a left which is figured as implicitly white. In an earlier piece on online media, for example, deBoer made a glancing sneer at folks who frequent Coates’ lovingly moderated comments section at the Atlantic. DeBoer characterized them as a “creepshow” and sneered that they were “asking [Coates] to forgive their sins.” I don’t know how to read that except as a suggestion that Coates’ commenters are actuated by white liberal guilt. Which assumes that none of the commenters are black. Which is a mighty big assumption to make, it seeems like.
Presumably deBoer would say that he wasn’t talking about all the commenters, just the creepshow white ones. But then, why are white commenters the only ones who get mentioned? Why is the criticism and the conversation always focused on white people? Why does a discussion of Coates’ work, turn, in deBoer’s second post, into an embarrassing paen to deBoer’s own righteous consistency? “They used to say I was leftier-than-thou, that I always wanted to be left-of-left. Now they say I’m anti-left. I guess that changed. But I didn’t change,” he declares. Coates’ book isn’t a chance to talk about Coates’ book. It’s not even a chance to respond to Coates’ criticism, exactly, since deBoer doesn’t directly acknowledge in his second piece that one of the people calling him out is Coates himself. Instead, the post is an opportunity for deBoer to declare himself, again, the one righteous man, stuck in the same righteous rut as ever.
I wish deBoer weren’t trapped in quite that impasse for various reasons, but the most relevant one here is that there really is a worthwhile discussion to be had about how white critics can, or should, approach black works of art. On the one hand, I think it’s important for white critics to engage with work by black artists because those works deserve serious consideration by everyone, of whatever color. Creators like Ta-Nehisi Coates, or Rihanna, or Jacob Lawrence, are not in some marginal genre, to be considered as footnotes. They’re at least as important as Harper Lee, or Madonna, or Picasso, and they should be treated as such by whoever happens to be sitting down at the keyboard.
But at the same time, when white critics write about black artists, they often bring with them a lot of presuppositions, and a lot of racism — both personal and structural. White people have been defining and criticizing black people for hundreds of years, and mostly that process has ended up with white people declaring, in one way or another, that black people aren’t human, not infrequently as a prelude to killing them. “Too often,” Ellison writes, “those with a facility for ideas find themselves in the councils of power representing me at the double distance of racial alienation and inexperience.” There’s a brutal, relevant history there that you have to think about before you as a non-black critic blithely insist a black author is too bitter, or start spiraling off at random to discuss your own career prospects.
Too easy praise can be as condescending as too easy sneering, of course. There’s no easy route to truth, though an awareness of the difficulty of the task should probably be balanced with the recognition that the trials of the white critic are not the most difficult trials ever devised. In any case, it’s worth keeping in mind, when that piece takes shape in your head, that out there in the world black people exist, who have been known to criticize black art themselves, and even, at times, white critics.
“So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white—
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That’s American.
Sometimes perhaps you don’t want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that’s true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me—
although you’re older—and white—
and somewhat more free.”—Langston Hughes, “Theme From English B”
‘Creators like Ta-Nehisi Coates… [a]re at least as important as Harper Lee’
Certainly.
‘…Rihanna… Madonna’
Well, maybe.
‘…Jacob Lawrence… Picasso’
Come on.
Coates is better than Harper Lee, Madonna I probably like better than Rihanna (though I like Beyonce a lot better than either); Jacob Lawrence I prefer to Picasso by a lot.
I’ve always been underwhelmed by Picasso. Whereas I just saw a Jacob Lawrence exhibit in DC of his little seen American history series, and it was just shockingly good. The composition, color sense—it’s really amazing work. I think he’s criminally undervalued…precisely because he’s seen as an African-American genre painter, and so not important to everyone or to the mainstream of art history.
To compare Coates and Harper Lee at all would be insulting to Coates if the amount of attention and even respect that she gets didn’t call for such comparisons in order to restore some proper perspective.
If you want to argue that Picasso is overrated, by all means go for it, but to put Jacob Lawrence (who is every bit as good as you say) over him without explanation looks like the very ‘too easy praise’ that you warn against above.
Nah; it just means I’m not super into Picasso. I’d probably put Saul Steinberg over Picasso too. Steinberg vs. Lawrence would be tricky…I like them both a lot.
Harper Lee’s book came out at the same time as Coates’, is why she’s on my mind.
Picasso was a dick, but he could paint. Nonetheless, fabulous piece.
Lawrence’s work is terrific, but I can see why it isn’t rated especially high. His formal approach is heavily indebted to Matisse. Contemporary art-history criteria prizes stylistic originality above all else, and I would expect he’d be seen as derivative.
Huh; I guess that’s possible. He’s very visually distinctive, I have to say (hints of El Greco, which is pretty great.) I bet that the historical and political narrative focus is more of a problem than the style. Christopher Read talks in Art and Homosexuality about how avant garde criteria depend on a stance of apolitical independence in a lot of ways; genius is individual rather than communal. So from that standpoint you could see why Lawrence would be seen as a lesser figure.
@ Robert Stanley Martin
I’d say yesterday’s art history criteria prized stylistic originality above all else, while today’s is concerned with representing the correct groups in the correct proportions. Which, granted, for whatever reason, hasn’t done Jacob Lawrence much good, but has been the (presumably temporary) making of far less talented artists, e.g Frida Kahlo.
@ Noah
That seems an odd characterization of avant garde criteria to me – excludes Otto Dix, George Grosz, Yeats, Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Woolf, Brecht, Céline, Olivier Messiaen…
Read’s talking about the art world in particular. And he’s not saying that it makes sense, I don’t think…just that people who are more eaily slotted into the independent genius role are more congenial to avant garde narratives.
I think it’s still pretty much true…claims of affirmative action diluting the art world seem pretty overdone to me. I’m not super into Frida Kahlo, though, I’ll admit (I like her friend Remedios Varo much better.)
Okay, but it’s not clear to me how any of the artists I named are “more eaily slotted into the independent genius role” than Lawrence.
It’s not that affirmative action is “diluting” art history, exactly, any more than did the modernist preoccupation with stylistic novelty. It’s just that the orthodoxy has changed: a different set of minor artists placed alongside the major ones, until the fashion changes again and they drop back out of sight; a different set of values for which the major artists are either claimed as prophets or scolded for failing to be the same (or some of each).
I think Lawrence is different than the writers above because (at least in the U.S.) engagement with black politics and community has a weight and a valence that other kinds of commitments don’t.
And I do think Lawrence’s project chronicling African-American history is less easily slotted into individualism than Joyce’s massively hermetic books, or Yeats’ lyrical self-dramatization, or even Woolf’s validation of inner life and experience. I’m less familiar with Dix though…perhaps Bert can speak to that if he’s reading…
The WaPo decided to illustrate my point for me. The possibility that black readers might exist does not seem to have occurred to the reviewer.
While I’m not that into the artists smack down game, I will have to say I’ve undervalued Jacob Lawrence tremendously. Just this summer I saw his “Great Migration” series all at once at MOMA and it was utterly amazing. Up until September 7th and a good enough reason to go visit NYC. And then part of his War series is up at the new Whitney, also really amazing work. I don’t think I’d ever seen major parts of either series displayed together and it completely altered my perception of Lawrence as an artist.
I actually think he is undervalued because his most compelling work is in these series and that just isn’t how we mostly consume visual art. And I definitely think the series are best viewed as a whole or at least as a big chunk of the whole.
I also think he’s undervalued in part because the most frequently reproduced works are the ones that are fit to be up in respectable middle class homes. And that also just isn’t anywhere near his best work.
Given all that I’d still have a hard time saying his work is better than Picasso’s, but hey, not being a professional critic, I’m not obliged to pick between them.
And you’re right, the WaPo review really does prove your point for you. It is odd that critiques manage to forget Coates has a black audience even when the book is explicitly addressed to his son, and so explicitly claims an intended audience that is black.
Somehow stuff like this always reminds me of the night I saw Anna Deavere Smith in Boston right after McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate. Deavere Smith did this absolutely creepy one man show where she frequently mimed being a Rwandan refugee or a black minister. It was an appalling version of black face but the whole audience was patting her and themselves on the back for their willingness to confront difficult topics and engage with race. The whole audience that was almost 100% white. A large chunk of white liberals seem to view engaging with black experience or black art as being primarily about white guilt. Your WaPo reviewer sure does. Leaves available two primary stances: showing off one’s appropriately dramatic white guilt or claiming that the white guilt being evoked is a bit exaggerated. Neither is actually interesting and to my mind neither does anything productive about race or racism.
Freddie deBoer wrote a nice apology to Ta-Nehisi Coates’ commenters. Doesn’t really address the fact that he insinuated they were all white…but still, it’s a pretty thorough statement of regret, so kudos to him for that.
Last time I ever bring a comment section here back from the dead, I promise (probably), but Coates has become such a pernicious presence that my overrating him here really bothers me – more precisely, my overrating him as a result of being too eager to bash Harper Lee, and thus slightly underrating her.
My implication was that Coates at least brought attention to an important issue – the long term effect of discrimination in housing prices – but actually, that much could be said for Lee too.
You don’t need to apologize for bringing the threads back (maybe for being wrong all the time, but that’s a different issue.)