An Evening with Ta-Nehisi Coates

Last night, my once in a blue moon book club headed to Miami to hear Ta-Nehisi Coates speak.  We headed down early, in part because of the utter unpredictable nature of Miami traffic, and in part because we wanted to eat dinner.  Happily, the traffic only had a few slowdowns, and we got to the parking lot in about 45 minutes during rush hour--not bad!

We went to the same restaurant where we ate before the Colson Whitehead event.  The food was still tasty.  The music soundtrack--not so much.  Gone was the music of my youth.  But we managed.

As we waited for the house to open, I tried to study people without being obvious.  I expected the same kind of crowd for both Coates and Whitehead.  After all, they are both famous authors, both African-American, both roughly the same age, both married with children.  But last night's crowd was different.

For one thing, last night's crowd was bigger.  One of my book club friends predicted a bigger turn out, but I wasn't sure.  I thought the fact that the event was on a Monday might work against it.  But no. 

The crowd last night had more young folks, which surprised me.  Many of them had that glamorous look that made me imagine that they stayed up late, sipping wine and working on their art--and also made me wonder where they came up with the money to manage their glamorous looks.

It's hard for me to imagine that my generation ever prompted that kind of speculation from our elders.  They sat in rapt attention, which made me think they were not there just because of a school assignment.

Of course, there were plenty of people of all ages--many of them dressed to the nines.  Lots of glittering tops and interesting shoes of a dressy variety.  As is usual for me, I felt fairly frumpy.

Coates was promoting his new fiction book, and I worried that he might just read from the book for 45 minutes.  Happily, he did not.  He began by reading the first page or two of the book, and then it was on to a freewheeling discussion between Coates and the grandson of Maya Angelou.  More than once, I wished I could have a transcript--or that I could take notes.

Let me try to record some of the insights:

--The most important one:  he said that the time we're in now are not the worst of times, even with Trump in office.  He said that if he was making a list of the worst of times, our current time wouldn't make the top 10, the top 20, or even the top 50.  Good perspective from a man who has spent the past decade writing and researching a book set in slave times in the U.S.

--He talked about black folks having been enslaved for 250 years and only living in freedom for 150 years.  What was implied:  that many of those 150 years weren't true freedom.  He even said that after slavery ended, the powerful created ever more imaginative ways of stripping people of their resources, especially the formerly enslaved.

--I imagine that his discussion of reparations would have seemed more revelatory if I hadn't already heard him discuss these ideas at great length in other spaces.

--He talked about needing to support young people, although he used a different verb which I can't remember right now.  He talked about how older people, meaning anyone who is older than 25, are so harsh when it comes to opinions and treatment of people who are children, but especially those who are 13-25 years old.  He talked about how young people are looking to make their way in the world that we created/left for them, and we need to shut up and be more supportive.

--He talked about how much he loves to write and how he'd been writing when he didn't have an audience ("when no one was reading anything I wrote") and how he would be writing when attention turned elsewhere.  It was good to remember how suddenly fame/power/audience might find us--and if it takes awhile, that might be good, because it gives us time to be rooted.

--A question from the audience:  how did Coates want to be remembered in 400 years?  He said he hoped people would be talking about more important things in 400 years.  I took a minute to think about what was happening 400 years ago, how that time period resembles ours, but also isn't remotely comparable to ours.  Fast forward 400 years:  wow.

--His answer to that question:  he wants to be remembered for his writing, of course.  But more important, for being a good friend, a good dad, a good husband.  A good reminder of what's important, at the end.