The Message by Ta-Nahisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a crucial writer for this era we find ourselves in now, in this chaotic year of 2024.

When so much seems to be going wrong in the world, it’s important to have writers and artists lay out how the world is (and how the world should be), to interpret and express the contradictions and horrors of America, and of the world America has made.

For some activists who are very tuned into certain current events, Coates’ book The Message won’t quite say anything new. But that isn’t really the point. It’s not a history book—it’s not meant to be a scholarly review of everything racist within America and in those countries propped up by American support.

Rather, The Message is a personal book by a writer who overlays these issues through the filter of his own experiences. And that is where its true value lies.

This memoir is made up of three essays, each more powerful than the last. In the first, Coates goes to Senegal to reflect on his African heritage. It’s a fascinating insight, and he gets into his own inner conflict over his lifelong connection to his very name. It’s a perspective on the African American experience not often explored: How Black African nationalism inspired his parents to give him the name Ta-Nehisi, and how he has had questioned the validity of that.

The theme of racial pride by way of imagining past empires, some real and some fictional, it’s something he goes back to again and again. It gives the reader much to think about.

At least there is some optimism as he finds himself pleasantly surprised by the development in Senegal. Even as that surprise comes with his own reckonings for being so instinctively pessimistic beforehand. If nothing else, it’s an excellent travelogue about a country seldom written about.

The second essay is extremely topical, and more directly focused on the land of his own birth, in which he goes to South Carolina to visit those who have used his previous works to fight against censorship. It’s a study on how America has rewritten its own history for the sake of white supremacy, and how America continues to do so right now in so many Southern states. Sadly, in the wake of the last election, moral panics about DEI and CRT are as relevant as ever. Sometimes these fights are won, and Coates indeed speaks of how inspirational the power of writing can be, but overall there is a sense that the forces of justice are currently losing.

In fact, there’s a feeling of profound sorrow prevalent in this book. A sense of loss, and even guilt, as Coates travels the world and finds so much failure in these systems that we live by. And that brings us to the final essay: He goes to Palestine. It covers more than half the book, and the majority of the discourse Coates is currently going through as well.

It gets deep. Coates has strong things to say about Israel and the occupation. A careful and meticulous writer, his is a is a very well-thought out book that does not try to be bombastic. It is admittedly not meant to be some overarching and objective history lesson. As Coates explains, there are already plenty of Israeli points of views in the West. He is instead seeking out a chance to tell the Palestinian side, as fairly as possible.

There is plenty of research herein. Coates can be a serious journalist when he needs to be. But again, the most poignant of these writings is simply the stories of going to Palestine and Israel, to Hebron and the settlements and East Jerusalem, and then explaining what happened there with humanity and empathy.

When criticism of Israel comes up, there are always those who immediately bring up the Holocaust. And not without cause, it is certainly part of the context of the history of Zionism. So let me say that Coates does write very much about the history of anti-Semitism, of the legacy of the Holocaust and Nazis and of how Jews were absolutely singled out throughout the racist era of Europe in the 1800s and beyond. He goes back to this repeatedly throughout the book, quoting the early Zionists and contrasting on the sad irony of how so many did support colonialism and how so many white supremacists have supported Zionism.

“Your oppression won’t save you,” is a key line. It doesn’t just refer to the Jews of history and the Israelis of today. It’s something that refers to everyone. The ultimate tragedy of history is that those who were oppressed often become the oppressors to others. He even mentions Liberia as an example, as no group is spared this lesson.

Coates also writes about his guilt concerning his explosive 2014 Atlantic article, ‘The Case for Reparations.’ He then used postwar German reparations given to Israel as an example in his case, and now realizes how wrong he was for expecting nation-states to be accurate representatives on the suffering of individuals. He was never an expert on international affairs, and had always thought it was too complex to delve into. (I happen to think he’s too hard on himself with all the guilt, it’s unfortunate but he’s hardly unique in that. It’s ultimately a positive thing to grow and change as one learns more.)

There is much writing about writing. As said, these are major world issues but this is still a personal memoir. He regrets putting so much faith in journalism, in expecting the institution of the Atlantic to truly make a difference. He speaks of his other books as his children, with plenty of flaws therein, and wonders if he has been true to himself all along with his mainstream writing career.

Sadly, The Message has proven to be perhaps his timeliest book. Written before October 7th of last year and the subsequent—and brutal—Gaza war, it now matters so much. Personally, I’ve found his current media tour in promoting this book and discussing its controversies to be invaluable in bringing these issues to the forefront.

Much has been already been written by others comparing the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the system of apartheid. And Coates does do his homework and researches well, speaking of Bantustans and ties to South Africa during the latter country’s oppressive past. Plenty of dates and quotes showing the history of Zionism and the development of the modern state of Israel. But what the book is truly about, is simply the people he meets and listens to. Simply the telling of their stories—and an ending on a final note lamenting the lack of Palestinian voices in the world of journalism.

As a Black man from America, Coates cannot help but liken the occupation to Jim Crow. The comparisons are valid, and inevitable.

At last, Coates returns to the themes from earlier in the book. About the narratives people tell themselves to justify who they are and what they have done.

“What I saw in the city of David was so familiar to me. The search for self in the mythic past, filled with kings, and sanctified by an approximation of science.”

It’s not just about Israel. It’s about African Americans, it’s about pride and what could have been if history went another way. It’s about Ta-Nehisi Coates’ own life, and it’s about the stories that were told to oppress his people and other peoples over the centuries.

And, it’s certainly about America.