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A review by reads2cope
The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates
5.0
"History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order. So it was with Josia Nott looking back to Ancient Egypt to justify slavery. And so it is with the American Revolution and the founding of a great republic, or the Greatest Generation who did not fight to defend merely the homeland but the entire world. If you believe that history, then you are primed to believe that the American state is a force for good, that it is the world’s oldest democracy, and that those who hate America hate it for its freedoms. And if you believe that, then you can believe that these inexplicable haters of freedom are worthy of our drones. But a different history, one that finds its starting point in genocide and slavery, argues for a much darker present and the possibility that here too are haters of freedom, unworthy of the power they wield. A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths. That the country’s major magazines, newspapers, publishing houses, and social media were suddenly lending space to stories that questioned the agreed-upon narrative meant that Americans, as a whole, might begin to question them too. And a new narrative — and a new set of possibilities — might then be born. "
A deep and deeply personal dive into the meaning of nations, the role of writers, and the duty of journalists. The voices we listen to and amplify shape not only our own thought, but the political reality and power of the future. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice and equality, and what the present and coming fights for those rights are.
Don't stop at this book. Coates tells readers himself: "Even my words here, this bid for reparation, is a stranger’s story — one told by a man still dazzled by knafeh and Arabic coffee, still at the start of a journey that others have walked since birth. Palestine is not my home. I see that land, its peoples and its struggles through a kind of translation — through analogy and the haze of my own experience — and that is not enough. If Palestinians are to be truly seen, it will be through stories woven by their own hands — not by their plunderers, not even by their comrades."
Take this call for action and pick up Noura Erakat, Edward Said, Isabella Hammad, Mosab Abu Toha, Rashid Khalidi, Susan Abulhawa, Adania Shibli, Raja Shehadeh, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Sahar Khalifeh, Mohammed El-Kurd, and so many more. Don't stop there, but take what you've learned and share it and use it.
A deep and deeply personal dive into the meaning of nations, the role of writers, and the duty of journalists. The voices we listen to and amplify shape not only our own thought, but the political reality and power of the future. A must-read for anyone who cares about justice and equality, and what the present and coming fights for those rights are.
Don't stop at this book. Coates tells readers himself: "Even my words here, this bid for reparation, is a stranger’s story — one told by a man still dazzled by knafeh and Arabic coffee, still at the start of a journey that others have walked since birth. Palestine is not my home. I see that land, its peoples and its struggles through a kind of translation — through analogy and the haze of my own experience — and that is not enough. If Palestinians are to be truly seen, it will be through stories woven by their own hands — not by their plunderers, not even by their comrades."
Take this call for action and pick up Noura Erakat, Edward Said, Isabella Hammad, Mosab Abu Toha, Rashid Khalidi, Susan Abulhawa, Adania Shibli, Raja Shehadeh, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha, Sahar Khalifeh, Mohammed El-Kurd, and so many more. Don't stop there, but take what you've learned and share it and use it.