toastykitten

My new job gives me lots of time to listen to podcasts, so I listened to the Chapo Trap House episode on the critique of Coates' book. (For what it's worth, I'd only vaguely heard of this podcast before, and only started reading up on them today. They appear to have some beef with Sady Doyle? Sarah Jeong? I dunno.)

Anyway, the critique makes the following points:

1. Coates uses the word "bodies" too much and it's dehumanizing.
2. Coates focuses too much on reparations, which doesn't do anything for most black people, and is also an easy out for white people to handwring and not do anything about the actual problems of racism.
3. Not enough class critique.
4. Basically it's overly pessimistic and he doesn't value the Civil Rights movement enough.

I think I'm going to have to re-read the book, since I don't really remember getting those impressions. I do agree on the overuse of "bodies", though - that was a bit much.

I'm not comfortable with Stephens "it all comes down to class" viewpoint.