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too. Coates speaks admiringly of another
new Black storyteller, Ryan Coogler, and of
Creed. That film told a true story, he thinks.
Creed felt more American to him, at the same
time that it felt truer to life. “There are sto-
ries that we tell. It’s not that slavery doesn’t
exist in American storytelling. It does. But
black people are objects. They are ways of
getting out of a thing.” They’re not central.
“So I feel like there are a lot of us right now,
and not even just novelists, who are involved
in this project of retelling American history
and American myth. It’s actually, I think, one
of the most optimistic and powerful things
happening right now.”
Right now, Coates feels that art is where
it’s at. In the world of nonfiction, he says,
journalists and columnists think if you line
up enough facts, you can convince some-
body of something. “But if you don’t get
to these essential stories and constructs of
who we are....” He trails off, but I understand
what he’s saying. If people don’t hear that,
or as we like to say down south, feel for the
people you are writing about, then they’re
still unconvinced.
And as an artist, you’ve failed.
It’s hard to do that work. Coates articu-
lates this anxiety perfectly when he talks
about the difference between the purpose
of nonfiction and the purpose of fiction.
Creative nonfiction, he thinks, “is not up
to the task of humanizing. That’s not what
it’s for.” He continues, “Also, I’ve got to tell
you, you go to a very different place when you
have to imagine a single person, versus write
about mass. It’s not the same. I wonder, like,
how you deal with the central tragedy and
violence and darkness and horribleness that
is happening, and the dehumanization with-
out writing a work that itself dehumanizes.”
He shakes his head. “My mom, actually, she
can’t finish it”—The Water Dancer—“and... I
actually feel like I intentionally held back. I
feel like Hiram was very privileged in terms of
being a slave.” He takes another bite of food.
“How do I write about something, as horrible
as it is, and not repeat the thing? You know
what I’m saying?” And, he repeats, he has to
resist the American legacy of myths. He has
to resist the lure of the adventure story. He
has to resist the lure of the cowboy. He has to
resist the lure of the savior. It’s a hard thing
to resist the great stories of your youth in an
effort to discover new myths, new heroes,
new legends that reveal a wider reality.
One of the things Coates must now do is
figure out how to balance the two: how to
write nonfiction and fiction, how to juggle
his renown with his calling. “So many writers
and so-called public intellectuals are driven
by their desire for fame, celebrity, and money
that this is practically all they see when they
see someone like Ta-Nehisi. But he does what
he does out of a deep sense of responsibility
that has never changed,” says Jackson. “It’s
a responsibility to his family—to his parents,
his wife, his son. But also a sense of responsi-
bility to black people. This is not to say that he
fetishizes race or that he’s a nationalist. But
that he knows that black people are keepers
of a sacred tradition, not just of resistance,
but artful, creative, generative, and generous
resistance in the name of truth.”A few weeks after our meeting, Coates is
called to testify before members of Congress
for H.R. 40, a proposed bit of legislation that
would study the issue of reparations. Coates
has been so persuasive in his writing about
the issue that even those on the other side
of the political divide, like conservative Ne w
York Times columnist David Brooks, agree
with him. The hearing is around three hours
long, and I watch it on YouTube, at turns
invested, distracted, angry. Invested because
Coates is one of the first to testify, directly
after Senator Cory Booker. He begins by
referencing comments by Senate majority
leader Mitch McConnell, who said America
should not be held liable for something that
happened 150 years ago, when no one cur-
rently living was alive. Coates immediately
does this brilliant thing where he insists our
very conception of ourselves as a nation and
a democratic republic is based on embracing
our legacy, embracing the more honorable
figures and aspects of our past.He says we were still paying pensions
to heirs of Civil War soldiers into this very
century, and that we still honor treaties even
though all the people who signed them are
no longer living. Reparations, in Coates’s
words, are a dilemma of inheritance.
Later, when asked to summarize by Rep-
resentative Sheila Jackson Lee, he argues
eloquently and convincingly that enslave-
ment is theft. “If I agree to pay taxes, if I
agree to fealty to a government, and you
give me a different level of resources out
of that tax pool, if you give me a different
level of protection, you have effectively sto-
len from me. If you deny my ability to vote,
and to participate in the political process, to
decide how those resources are used, you
have effectively stolen from me.” Coates
goes on to establish the wealth gap that Juli-
anne Malveaux, an economist on the panel,
attributes to that theft that spans almost 350
years, from 1619 to 1968—“conservatively.”
Then Coates finishes with steady assurance.
“This wasn’t a passive discrimination. This
was appropriating resources from one group
and giving them to the other through the
auspices of the state.”
I believe The Water Dancer will not be the
last novel you read by Ta-Nehisi Coates. “I
could write slavery fiction all day,” he says.
“I feel like it because I feel like it’s the quint-
essential thing about America. It really is.”
Along with the massacre, forced removal,
and colonization of indigenous peoples and
lands, Coates feels that this is the violent,
secret heart of this country.
“This is the thing they try to avoid, but it
defines everything. We’re just getting to the
moment where people are.... I don’t know if
it was too painful before for black writers,
for us, to go there. Maybe there’s enough
distance at this point for us where we can
talk about it in certain ways.” He notes that
writers during the Harlem Renaissance were
working at a time when former slaves were
alive, so it would have been tough. That writ-
ers can go there now, this is the thing that
gives him more hope, more than any bit of
politics. Once we can go there, “then people
will understand they have different myths,
and different ideas, and different stories.”Ta-Nehisi Coates