38 newyork| november25–december8, 2019hold my fire, watch, think, let things mari-
nate, and then turn out something that’s
more fully formed? This was part of leav-
ing Twitter. I had to part with another por-
tion of myself, the blogging portion of
myself, the Twitter portion of myself,
which I really liked. But the world kind of
changed for me, and it became one in
which I had to be a lot more careful about
what I said and what I did and that’s okay.
Can you talk about your decision to
leave Twitter?
You know, what happened was I real-
ized that people were, like, eatingoff of
me. Every time I would write apiece,
there’d be like 50 op-eds to whatI wrote.
And then it would be a click economyon
Twitter. During the 2016 campaign, there
was a dude^16 who would record YouTube
videos responding to what I wrote. I real-
ized when I say something, it’s no longer
just the writing talking.^ So that changes,
man. You start taking up oxygen in the
room. Why don’t I cede some space. Why
don’t I be a lot more discerning about
when I talk, because what I really care
about is the writing. I’m a happierperson,
by the way, too, having done that.
It’s fair to say a lot of people turn to you
to help them make sense of the world
through the lens of your analysis.Do you
feel any kind of residual responsibility
toward those people?
Are you talking about yourself?
I really miss you, man. Come back.
You can text me anytime!
But seriously, just one example: Con-
versations about racism are easier with a
lot of white people I know. I can attribute
that largely to your work.
I mean, that’s a good thing. I’m at the
end of the book tour right now. I did a big
thing in L.A. with Ryan Coogler where we
talked to a church full of black folks. I did
these small groups in Atlanta, inL.A., in
New Orleans, where I got to talk to small
groups of black folks. In the middleofthis
tour, I got to hang out on the Yard atHow-
ard homecoming. I have no problemtalk-
ing to my people. Something else happens
with the larger and white public. That’s
cool, too. I think there are very, very few
writers who can say they don’twant alarger audience. And if I happento get a
larger audience but I can still stay true to
those impulses and instincts that got me
here in the first place, then I’m happy. I’m
doing all right.^17
Some of the criticism your work has
faced on the left is that you overstate
racism’s intrinsic nature in a way that
casts it as this elemental force that will
be with us forever. Is this a fairassess-
ment of your belief?
No,it’s nota fairassessment.
I dothinkyourworksuggests you
believe,attheveryleast,thatthe work
that needs to be done to end white
supremacy in America is an almost, if not
totally, insurmountable task because of
how committed we are historically andculturally to that idea.
So is white supremacy insurmountable?
Can we boil it down to that?
Yeah, let’s put it that way.
No, I would never say that. I think what
I said in Between the World and Me is that
it’s likely to be with us through the rest of
this country’s history.
What’s different about those two ideas?
I mean, insurmountable implies a kind
of certainty. Look, anti-Semitism is what,
2,000-plus years old? Can Europe say it’s
free of anti-Semitism? After two millennia
of struggle with it? So what fucking right
does America, or even us who are doing the
work here in America, have to presume
that we most certainly will be free someday
of racism? That’s what I object to. Because
I think you deeply understate the challenge
that’s faced. This is a country that would
not exist without slavery. It’s in the bones.
It’s in the economies, it’s in the cultures, it’s
in the politics, it’s everywhere. What good
does it do a doctor to act like cancer isn’t a
big deal just because he hopes for a cure?
One thing I’ve heard repeatedly from
activists I’ve talked to is the need to
believe victory is possible.
They’re not wrong. They just havea dif-
ferent job than I have.
Do you think they’re deluded,though?
No, I wouldn’t say that, either.I would
never say that. When I came to NewYork
City, I wanted to be a writer who couldsup-
port his family, whose work people
respected. I was a college dropout.I hadan
11-month-old child. I had no discernible
income. The only income in my housewas
made by my then-partner, now wife,who
was making about $29,000 a year.We were
living in the basement of a brownstone.If it
was somebody’s job to assess, do youthink
this guy is going to become this celebrated
writer, and he said no, I couldn’t reallybe
mad at them for doing that. Nowme,
myself, who’s out here in the struggleat that
time? I had to believe in myself.I hadto
believe in that beyond whatever empirical
evidence might’ve been there inthefirst
place. I know this is a bit of atortured
metaphor. What I’m trying to say is,people
who are actually out there doing thework,
I understand why they need to believe. ■If Joe Bidenwas black,even blackpeople wouldbe like, Oh,absolutely not.13 14 The first blackman
to run for president
was George Edwin
Taylor, who ranas
the candidateof
the National
Negro Liberty
fewer than 2,000
votes.15 Percentage of black voters
who voted for the
Republican presidential
candidate, according tothe
Roper Center at Cornell:
1996: 12%
2000: 9%
2004: 11%
2008: 4%
2012: 6%
2016: 8%16 Glenn Loury,
a distinguished
professor
of economics
at Brown.17 Coates testifying before Congress
on reparations in June 2019.PHOTOGRAPHS: ALLISON FARRAND/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (BOOKER, HARRIS); AP PHOTO/PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVÁIS (CONGRESS)