Ta-Nehisi Coates explores how oppression can breed oppression in ‘The Message’

Transcript :

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. My guest Ta-Nehisi Coates is best known for his book “Between The World And Me,” which was written in the form of a letter to his 15-year-old son, about what it means to be a Black teenager and a Black man in America. It won a 2015 National Book Award. His Atlantic Magazine cover story, “The Case For Reparations,” sparked a national conversation about the historical ways in which Black people were denied opportunities to create generational wealth that have led to continuing financial and educational inequality. His new book, “The Message,” is about what he learned about race and identity, visiting three different places. In Senegal, he thought about his ancestors and visited the fort on the island of Goree, the final stop for some captured people before being forced onto a ship taking them to enslavement in America. In South Carolina, he met with a high school teacher who was prevented from teaching his book, “Between The World And Me,” because it made some students feel uncomfortable and ashamed to be white. In Israel and the occupied territories, he reflected on how victims can become victimizers.

“The Message” is written in the form of a letter to his students at his alma mater, Howard University, where he’s now the Sterling Brown endowed chair in the English department. His new book is also about teaching and writing. Ta-Nehisi Coates, welcome back to FRESH AIR. I want to start with your trip to Africa, to Senegal. It sounds like you’ve been wanting to go for a long time, but you kept putting it off. What was holding you back?

TA-NEHISI COATES: Well, first of all, thanks for having me, Terry, and that really is a great question. I think the first thing to say is that I became a international traveller relatively late in life. I got my adult passport when I was 37 years old. And so my experience with travel was not particularly diverse to begin with. And what travel I did – I think, up until the writing of this book, what international travel I did for the most part, I think I thought of as leisurely, for the most part. Going to Senegal was not that. And I think on some level, I always knew that. Like, it was a trip that I knew I had to take. But I think I, in the back of my mind, knew that I would have to confront some things, that it would not be a vacation, that it would not necessarily be relaxing, that it would be more akin to a pilgrimage of sorts. And that’s kind of what it turned into.

GROSS: So what made you decide the time had come?

COATES: I couldn’t keep putting it off. I mean, that’s the fact of the matter. I was putting it off. I was putting it off. I don’t know that I had the words at that point in time to tell you why I was putting it off. But I was. I was, and I had a reaction that I cannot repeat on radio as the plane descended out of the clouds, and I looked down and I saw the buildings of Dakar shooting up. And it is not a reaction I’ve ever had in anywhere else that I’ve been.

GROSS: Describe the reaction more.

COATES: I uttered a profanity. And I didn’t mean to, and it came out of nowhere, and I was shocked myself to hear me utter that profanity. But I think it was evidence of some things that, you know, I really had been burying that, you know, I had to be confronted.

GROSS: Like what?

COATES: Wow. Like what? There is, when you’re Black in this country, Africa or a story that’s told about Africa is a weight and in many ways, a cudgel that is used to beat on us, and it’s historically been used to beat on us. And I emphasize the story of Africa, not necessarily Africa itself, but the story of it. And the story of it goes something like this. It is a dark continent, filled with jungle and uncivilized people, and by uncivilized, I mean, people that have never done anything, people who are barbaric and violent and are at a lower order of humanity.

And that story of Africa is as at least old as enslavement. It’s not – it hasn’t always been the story of it, but it is, you know, one that is, you know, pretty – has its origins in enslavement. And thus, it’s the story that most African Americans are raised under the weight of. All of us, for instance, know the story of Tarzan and what role Africans play in that essential myth. And that’s one weight. But what happened with my parents’ generation and really what started before my parents’ generation, but I think what kind of reached the, I would say, critical point during my parents’ generation was that a counter-story was told. And that counter-story sought to take the narrative, the racist narrative of Africa, and go to the other end and say, in fact, this was a place of great kingdoms, of great people, who had done great things. And we were the descendants of those great people. And you see that in the adoption, for instance, of people in my generation, where I think it really, you know, began to be popularized of African names, for instance, African traditions, the creation of ostensibly holidays that, you know, claim to have African roots, although, you know, they really are African American, but just an attempt to reclaim your roots and and recreate a connection with the place.

GROSS: You name is an example of that.

COATES: My name is very much an example of that, which – this is very difficult to say. I mean, I write it obviously – has always been a point of contention. For me, I think in my head, it calls attention to itself. It’s unusual even being born into a community when many people have names that are unusual by American standards. My name was still very, very much unusual, but I think what my parents sought to do from the moment I was born, was inure me against the racism of culture that pervades American life and really takes, you know, Africa and the story of Africa as its root. And what they sought to do was throw it back. And what they picked for me was an ancient Egyptian name that refers to the ancient kingdom of Nubia in the south, a place of ostensibly Black kings and Black kingdoms and Black queens, and great deeds that were done by Black people and to root me in that as a counter to the racist narrative that I would undoubtedly hear as I went through my life.

GROSS: So of all the places in Africa you could go to, you chose to Dakar, Senegal. Do you – have you, like, traced your ancestors to that place?

COATES: I have not. I have not. I mean, I have kind of. You know, I do have some ancestry there, but that wasn’t what I had, you know, particularly in mind. By the time I went, I understood that this connection was as much about – or I should say, was less about blood than the interpretation of blood. By which I mean, I understood that this was an imagined relationship. By imagined I don’t mean to say it was an unworthy relationship, or it wasn’t a significant relationship. We imagine relationships all the time. We imagine people as our brothers, our sisters, we imagine them as our cousins, our children. I understood that this was not a direct – that the power of it was not necessarily in blood. I chose that Dakar because I had already had an interest in French. I had already – you know, it was a language that I had studied, that I continued to study. And this is not in the book, but when I was a much younger man, a boy, in fact, I was a drummer, and I played the djembe drum, and I played in a style that came out of Senegal. And so I had this kind of connection to it in my mind already. And so it just seemed like the place to go.

GROSS: So even though you didn’t have ancestors that you know of that could be traced to Senegal, you did feel like you were in some kind of communication with ghosts there – with the ghosts there.

COATES: I did. I did very, very much – very, very much. And you know, it’s like, I guess what I would say about that is, like, I’ve done those Ancestry DNA tests that you know, trace you to – and there is something there. Like, there is some percentage of me that comes from Senegal, right? Or comes from the area that, you know, became Senegal. But it just – that didn’t really matter. You know what I mean? Like, that wasn’t really significant. And I think I was so dismissive in some respects, so I took so much of an empirical approach to this, that I was shocked to get there and have this intense emotional reaction. Now all the Black people listening to this are saying, duh, you know.

GROSS: (Laughter).

COATES: And maybe you would say, duh, given that I had put it off. Like, maybe that says that I should have known that, like, on some level, I did know that, you know, there would be some sort of intense emotional reaction. But I’m telling you, Terry, I’ve never felt anything like that in my life, you know?

GROSS: Was it a particular moment that sparked that feeling for the first time?

COATES: There were a few. But the one that I think about most is I stayed in a very, very nice hotel that was on the beach. It’s hard for me to even call it a beach, but it was on the beach of Senegal. And I got there that morning, took a nap, I think, woke up for dinner, got dressed for dinner, walked outside. And on this beach, there were people very clearly vacationing, people with their kids and frolicking in the water, and there was one of those really fancy pools that was kind of level with the ground, and people were serving drinks, and there was a DJ, and I went and I sat down, and the restaurant I sat down in, which was attached to the hotel, was outside. And I sat down, and where I was seated, I could look out onto the Atlantic Ocean. And I knew that what I was feeling at that moment was not what everybody else there was feeling. And it was like, I was at a funeral, and everybody else was at a wedding. That’s what it felt like.

GROSS: Because the people who were enslaved in America who left from that part of Africa across the Atlantic Ocean…

COATES: Yes.

GROSS: …And made the passage.

COATES: And like, I’m looking out, and my family, as I say, in the book, is from a small town called Berlin, Md., on the Eastern Shore. And when I was a child, we would go to Berlin and people from that, you know, area, the small percentage of people who know this, know that Ocean City is not that far. Ocean City, Md., is not that far from there. And Ocean City is right on the tip of the edge of Maryland. You literally can swim out into the ocean. And I would do that every summer with my mother. And I would see my family that had been in that region, you know, for as long as we can, you know, trace back. And then there I was on the other side of the ocean. You know, at this place where this epic, this story that is my life, there was my parents’ life, began, and there was an overwhelming feeling that came from that.

GROSS: Did that feeling get more intense when you went to the island of Goree and visited the fort where some captive people were sent to American enslavement?

COATES: Yes. And once again, I emphasize how unprepared I was because there was a large body of scholarship on Goree that points out that, you know, originally Goree was sold largely to African Americans and people in the Black diaspora at large as this point of no return where some, you know, untold numbers, you know, millions of enslaved Black people had passed through this one specific door. And it was a grand story. The story, you know, the kind of story that we had hungered for. And, you know, of course, scholars got ahold of the story, turned out not exactly to be true. And so I was aware of that scholarship. And so I said, OK, I got to go to Goree because, you know, can’t be Black American and come to Senegal and not go to Goree. So I’m going to go to Goree. You know what I mean? As casually, as I’m speaking right now is as casually as I guess I was thinking about it.

And, man, I got on that ship, that shuttle that takes you from Dakar, out to Goree, which maybe takes about 20 minutes or so. And that shuttle pulled off. And it was early in the morning. It was about 7 A.M. I went at that time because I wanted to avoid the tourists, and I was up on the second level looking out. And when that shuttle pulled off, you know, I had all of the feelings in the world. They all converged on me. And they converged on me, you know, with even more strength once I got, you know, to the island as I walked around. And this is what I mean about the power of imagination.

GROSS: Did you imagine yourself being one of the people who was about to be enslaved if they survived the trip?

COATES: I didn’t picture it like that. What I imagined is my many, many, many, many, many grandmothers who were taken in that way. That was what I saw. That was what it – that just that hit hard.

GROSS: Alright, let’s take a short break here and then we’ll talk some more. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book is called “The Message.” We’ll be right back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE ROOTS’ “ADRENALINE”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. He’s best known for his book “Between The World And Me,” which won a National Book Award, and his Atlantic Magazine cover story, “The Case For Reparations.” His new book, “The Message,” is about his reflections on race, slavery, colonialism, and identity on trips to South Carolina, Senegal, and Israel on the West Bank.

You write that when you were growing up, there were elders in your world who took to nationalism as religion, which is to say a set of answers for both their politics and their lives. Can you talk about that a little bit?

COATES: I can. In a very subtle way, “The Message” is a book about nationalism itself. And it is about the – I would say, in its most captivating and attractive form, for me, it is about the nationalisms of people who are told that they are nothing, that they are not a nation, that they are not a people, that they don’t have anything, that, as a friend of mine once said, that they are redundant, that the only place in the world that is fit for them is as an underclass or maybe not in the world at all and the stories that we construct to fight back against that.

And so I think that particular era of nationalism, for someone who grows up and they cut on the TV, and they either don’t see themselves, or they see an image of themselves that is the direct opposite of their mother, their father, the Black people that they see around them – that person who goes out into the world and all of the white people who they come in contact with their popular representation of Black people as Stepin Fetchit or some other degrading stereotype, it is very, very seductive to construct a counter-narrative to that, a direct counter-narrative to that, that completely goes the other way. And that narrative settles all the questions for you. It settles all the difficulties for you.

You say we were, you know, this, in fact, we were that. That’s the end of the conversation. But what you lose in that is the very sticky and complicated quest and journey and all of the nuance of humanity itself. You end up making a cartoon out of yourself. Even though the cartoon might, you know, maybe flatter you a little bit more, it is a cartoon, nonetheless, and it is ultimately dehumanizing in itself because it robs you and your ancestors and your people of their complexity.

GROSS: Well, I’m thinking you refer in the book to how a lot of people – maybe your parents as well – take pride in the fact that there were Egyptian pharaohs who were – they were Black and think of the accomplishments, in art, in architecture, in the pyramids, in math. But at the same time, I mean, the pharaohs ruled over enslaved people.

COATES: Yeah. I mean, to me, I mean, that’s really where I came out at the end of the book, right? Like, what are our standards? Like, what are we trying to do here? What do we actually – you know, I don’t think it’s wrong necessarily to say, look, your notions of what civilization is or what makes for a civilization, it doesn’t just apply to this one group of people. I think that I as a writer at this point in my life, though, would be wrong if I did not ask the question that has to immediately come after that. What do you mean by civilization? Why is this important? Why is this significant? The thing you raise about Egyptians is actually very interesting to me because I had always believed that the significance of ancient Egypt for afrocentrists, for Black nationalism, which I was raised, you know, very, very close to, that had began with them.

And what I, in fact, did not realize that actually what happened was some famous, what was called at the time, ethnologists developed this obsession with ancient Egypt themselves, a civilization that was older than Greece and older than ancient Rome, and they had to explain away the fact that this civilization was in Africa. And so they created an entire body of literature to try to separate Egypt from Africa and any evidence that there was anybody who I would not necessarily call Black because that wasn’t a category that existed back then, but anybody who resembled someone who could be found on a plantation, someone who could be found in Harlem, someone who could be found somewhere in Jim Crow America. There was no relationship between the two, and if there were, that people only existed as slaves in that world.

GROSS: Even in, like, you know, Biblical movies or, you know, like “The Ten Commandments,” which is, you know, set in Ancient Egypt, there aren’t, like – the only Black people I remember and that are some – like, slaves who are captured in war.

COATES: Yeah.

GROSS: And they’re just being sent before the pharaoh.

COATES: Yeah.

GROSS: So yeah, our popular culture has depicted Egyptians as white.

COATES: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess, like, look, I personally don’t have much caught up in making sure that there are Black people depicted there. Like, I just, like, I don’t – largely for the reasons that you just outlined about, like, I don’t believe that if I were, if I am the descendants of people that never built a pyramid or never, you know, erected a great empire, whatever that means, I’m actually quite fine with that. Like, I don’t believe my dignity or my worth or, you know, the argument for somebody not taking things from me or enslaving me rests in, you know, the great things that I’ve done. Like, I don’t have much attached to that. You know, having said that, I do think, you know, because I think what is often said to, quote-unquote, “Black nationalists” or “afrocentrists” is, why are you making this about race? Why is it important, you know, what race the ancient Egyptians were? And I would throw that back at America itself, an American population and American academicians and American ethnologists and say, indeed, why is it important? Because it didn’t actually start with us.

GROSS: Well, let me reintroduce you here. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book is called “The Message.” We’ll talk more after a short break. I’m Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SUN RA’S “SUNRISE”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. Let’s get back to my interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book, “The Message,” is about his trips to South Carolina, Senegal, Israel and the West Bank, and his resulting reflections on race, identity, colonialism, and how victims can become victimizers. Coates is best known for his book “Between The World And Me,” written in the form of a letter to his 15-year-old son about what it means to be Black and male in America. His Atlantic Magazine cover story, “The Case For Reparations,” sparked a national conversation about how discrimination has prevented Black people from creating generational wealth. We recorded our interview last Thursday before the Israeli strike that killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.

So you decided to go to Israel and the West Bank. What did you want to figure out by going there? Well, actually, you went there as part of a festival.

COATES: I did. Well, the first five days, and then the second five days, I was on my own.

GROSS: And I should mention here you went before the war in Gaza and before the escalation of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. So you went as part of this trip to the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Why did you want to go there? And what was your emotional reaction to seeing this Holocaust museum?

COATES: Actually, at that point, I was by myself. That happened relatively late in the trip. Wow. Look, this last half of the book is very, very critical of Zionism and of Zionism as a state project specifically. I don’t think you can take people’s beliefs, people’s firmly held beliefs – even when you object to them, I don’t think you can take them lightly. The book begins with my own painful, in some ways, move away from nationalism. And here I was engaging with the nationalism of another group of people who had been subjected to a campaign of extermination, who had been subjected to industrialized genocide on top of literally thousands of years of oppression, 2,000 years of oppression. That’s a lot. That’s a lot.

And so while I don’t shrink back from my ultimate conclusions, which hold that this ideal of Zionism, this idea of a state project has come at the expense of another group of people, that it itself has erected an apartheid project. I believe that. But at the same time, it felt necessary to take the roots of that idea very, very, very seriously. And that’s why I went.

GROSS: So one time when you were in – I think this was when you were in the West Bank, you were walking to do some shopping, and you got stopped by a soldier, an Israeli soldier, who asked you – this was at a checkpoint – who asked you what your religion was. Would you describe that back and forth?

COATES: Yes. I was on the West Bank in the old city of Hebron. Hebron has been a flashpoint over 100 years for conflicts because it is there that the Cave of the Patriarchs is there and some of the most famous figures in the Bible are said to be buried there. And so it’s a place of particular religious significance. There are both Palestinians who live in Hebron, and also there are Jewish settlers on the West Bank who live in Hebron also. They are not accorded the same rights. And this was made viscerally clear to me. As I walked through Hebron with the group that I was with, there were streets that we would encounter when we were allowed as non Palestinians to walk, and Palestinians were not allowed to walk. And so I had witnessed that. I had seen that.

I was on my way to support a vendor, and a guard came out and he stopped me, and he said, what’s your religion, bro? And I said, you know, I don’t really have a religion. I’m not a particular religious person. And he said, come on, you know, don’t play. What is your religion? I said listen, I’m not – he said, OK. And this is when it really became clear. He said, what was your – what is your parents’ religion? I said, well, my parents aren’t that religious, either. And he said, uh-huh. So what was your grandmother’s religion? I said, well, my grandmother was a Christian. And he said, OK, you can go pass. And it was so blatant. It was so clear – you know what I mean? – what that was. And this was, you know, during a time where, you know, we were traveling all over the West Bank, and there were, you know, roads that we could take or that we couldn’t take rather, because we were traveling in the way that Palestinians would normally travel. And then there were other roads that Jewish settlers were able to take.

This was during a period where I was being made aware of the fact that if a Palestinian is arrested on the West Bank, they are subject to the military system of justice, whereas if a Jewish settler is arrested on the West Bank, they’re subjected to the civil system. This was a point when I was made aware of the differing water laws that, you know, govern you depending on who you are, an entire separate system of justice that was unequal or entire separate system of governance, I should say, that was separate and unequal. As a descendant of someone who was or peoples who were born into a system of governance that was separate and unequal, it was very hard for me to not be struck by that emotionally.

GROSS: When you were questioned about your religion, you wondered, what would have happened if you said you were Muslim? What do you think might have happened?

COATES: I wouldn’t have been allowed to pass. That was clear. That was clear. That was clear.

GROSS: So what’s it like for you to hold two thoughts in your head that, you know, that Jews were the victims of genocide during the Nazi regime and faced, you know, discrimination and ghettos for many, many years, for centuries before that. And yet you think the Jewish state has become an oppressor of Palestinians and you compare Palestinians’ lives to Black Americans who lived during the Jim Crow era in America. So this gets to a kind of recurring theme in your book that victims can become victimizers. What’s it like for you to keep both of those thoughts in your head at the same time?

COATES: It’s in fact the same thought, and it’s an unfortunate thought. You see, this idea of victims as victimizers, it’s not a Jewish error. It’s not even – it’s not a Jewish thing. I am part of a community that fought in the Civil War to free themselves as members of the Union Army. And we praise that effort, and we talk about that effort. And some of those soldiers went West and fought wars against the Indigenous people of this country. They became victimizers. I’m part of a community that in an effort to free itself and liberate itself from white racism in this country, bought into the dream of Liberia, which meant going over to Africa and subjecting Africans to Western civilization. This is Black people talking. This is Black descendants of slaves or freed people talking and Christianizing them and civilizing them. That is victims becoming victimizers.

What is uncomfortable is for us to see that victimization and oppression, even at its highest point, may not necessarily be ennobling. That, in fact, may actually in the most cliche terms, I’m sorry to use this, but, you know, to be a hurt person who hurts people, that’s certainly possible. And that’s a dark thought. It’s a dark thought because I think we want to believe that having that oppression is some sort of card, you know, a moral high ground that is automatically conferred. You know, but the fact of the matter is that sometimes that’s true. Sometimes it’s not. And I think as much as I saw the connection between Black people and Palestinians, when I was over there, it was not so hard for me to see myself in the Israelis. And that was tough.

GROSS: Having made that trip and written this book, do you think you were reacting in a more intense way to the Netanyahu regime’s military strikes in Gaza and now in Lebanon?

COATES: Yes. Yes, I am. But I am reacting, I think, most intensely to what it is in the defense of. You see, it’s not just that I went over and I went and saw some things. It’s that, you know, I interviewed actual Palestinians who were living under it. I interviewed, and spent time with young men and young women who had served in the IDF themselves. I interviewed and talked to people who had actually grown up in settlements themselves. I read the literature. I read the Amnesty International report that labels Israel in an apartheid regime. Why would Amnesty International do that? Do they have something specific against Israel? I guess some people would say so. I read the Human Rights Campaign book that concluded the same thing. Maybe they have something against Israel. I don’t know. I read the report of the human rights group in Israel, B’Tselem, concluding that this is a regime that is practicing apartheid. How do I continue to – look, how does one, an American, whose tax dollars goes to subsidize the defense of this regime, how do we continue to look away from that? How do I as a Black American born under American apartheid, look away from that? Even, as I, you know, as I said before, could see myself in it, you know, I just felt that I had the responsibility knowing that to speak about it.

GROSS: Well, let’s take another break here. If you’re just joining us, my guess is Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book is called “The Message.” We’ll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HADEN’S “EL CIEGO (THE BLIND)”)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. He’s best known for his book “Between The World And Me,” which won a National Book Award, and his Atlantic Magazine cover story, “The Case For Reparations.” His new book, “The Message,” is about his reflections on race, slavery, colonialism, and identity, on trips to South Carolina, Senegal, and Israel on the West Bank.

You seem to me to be very split about journalism. On the one hand, you’re a journalist, among other things, and, you know, it’s a very important form for you. On the other hand, you seem to have lost faith in a lot of journalism. Can you talk about that split within yourself?

COATES: You know, I haven’t figured it out yet. I haven’t figured it out. Look, the tough part about this is some of the journalism that I felt was inadequate was performed by organizations that I very, very much admire as journalistic organizations, and not just admire – organizations that I learned from – you know? – organizations that publish work that I teach and say, this is what you should learn from. It’s hard for me – in the book, I talk about journalism almost as a kind of a scientific method. You know, you go to a place. You interview people. You talk to them. You know what I mean? You try to read the books. You try to read the studies. You get the data about the place. You read the literature of the place, and hopefully you come back, and, you know, you’ve created something that, you know, really fleshes out the humanity, you know, of what you’ve seen.

And I went over there and I said, where is this world that I’m seeing? Where is this world that I’m seeing? Because I don’t think it’s really been reflected. And I’ll tell you, Terry, maybe a good way to think about this is as follows. There is a word that I talk about in this book that I think comes up all the time when we talk about Israel, we talk about Palestine, and that is – and the conflict, and that is that it is complex. And perhaps it is for certain journalists who are coming from certain backgrounds. But I have to tell you when I am in a place and half the population, is enshrined as citizens. And the other half is somehow enshrined as something less, that’s not complicated to me. That’s not complicated to me at all. When I am on the West Bank, as I said, and the majority of the people are subjected literally to a separate system of justice, that’s not complex to me. That’s wrong.

GROSS: What is definitely complicated is how to fix it.

COATES: That is definitely complicated. That is definitely complicated. And I don’t have the answer to that here, but I think I have a good first step. And I speak about that from my position as a journalist and as a writer. And I’m going to keep coming back to this. We need more people and more voices who are existing underneath of this, on the other side of this, to be able to speak. I think that is absolutely crucial. We need more Palestinians to be enshrined to tell their story and to tell their perspective. There are whole worlds that we’re missing.

And so here we are trying to come up with solutions. But the people who are enduring, from my perspective, this system of apartheid have not been enshrined to speak about what future they would envision to the degree that I think should happen and is appropriate. It would be as if we were trying to figure out segregation – and there were people who didn’t want to do this – and we completely sidelined Black people and deprived them of the ability to articulate what they felt the world should look like. Imagine a world where there can’t be an I Have a Dream speech because nobody will cover it, or nobody will give the opportunity for that message to get out in the first place.

GROSS: I want to talk with you a little bit about language because part of the book is about being – you know, teaching writing and literature at Howard University, and about how you fell in love with language when you were really young, how your mother taught you to read before you were even in school. And one of the examples you give is, like, falling in love with Shakespeare.

COATES: Yeah. I am one, my liege (laughter).

GROSS: Yeah, my liege, exactly, exactly, exactly.

COATES: (Laughter).

GROSS: So I want to read the passage that you quote in here that you fell in love with. So this is from “Macbeth,” and I’m just going to read this. Second murderer speaks – I am one, my liege, whom the vile blows and buffets of the world hath so incensed that I am reckless what I do to spite the world. First murderer – and I another so weary with disasters, tugged with fortune, that I would set my life on any chance to mend it or to be rid on it.

COATES: I’m smiling as I listen to that.

GROSS: I’m not exactly sure – I have a sense of what that means, but I’m not exactly sure. And I can’t – I don’t know how old you were when you fell in love with that passage.

COATES: (Laughter).

GROSS: But, you know, the problem that everybody runs up against when reading Shakespeare is all these, like, you know, archaic words and, like, what do they mean.

COATES: Oh, but they’re beautiful words.

GROSS: They are, but…

COATES: And they’re words we shouldn’t have lost. Like, they actually, you know – do you really want me to break this down? Because…

GROSS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it.

COATES: OK. So obviously – I am one, my liege – he’s talking to, you know, somebody who is, you know, of high royal status. Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world, I mean, that was just – once I got it, like, that was incredible. What he’s saying is, like, the cruel, you know, blows and buffets, these attacks that I’ve endured that are vile, that I didn’t deserve, have so incensed. They’ve so angered me that I am reckless what I do to spite the world, that I don’t – you know, there’s language that I can’t use here – that I don’t care, you know, what happens. I’m so upset by how cruelly this world has treated me, that I really that I really don’t care, you know? And then the second murderer says, you know, and I another so weary with disaster.

GROSS: Me, too (laughter). He’s saying, me, too, yeah.

COATES: Me, too. Yeah, he basically says, me, too. You know, he says I’m weary with disaster. Like, the hyperbole – I’m weary with disaster, tugged with fortune, not misfortune, tugged with fortune – you know what I mean? – that I would set my life, I would give my life, I would put my life on the table, you know, to mend it or be rid on it. To mend it, to fix this, or I’m out. You know what I mean? And I heard that and I said, man, I know people like that. I know what that is. I know what that is, to feel that you’ve been so cruelly mistreated by the world that you don’t really care about the world. You would do anything. And on top of that, that you feel that you would do anything to mend it or, you know, to be rid on it. Like, either this gets fixed or I’m out. You know what I mean?

Like, that is in, you know, all the gangster rap. That’s in hip-hop. That’s in, you know, all of our movies, in, you know, “Menace II Society.” I think about O-Dog. I mean, that is a ethic that is really, really strong and anybody who’s come up close to the street would recognize. And to think that the realization that hit me was that it was some 500 years old, that here I was in the 1990s in Baltimore City Public Schools seeing this. And some dude 500 years before, who knew nothing about the street, who knew nothing about me as a Black person but knew humanity could see this. Now, that’s powerful. That is powerful.

GROSS: I love this. You’re probably a great teacher.

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: And I had a great teacher who read all of “Hamlet” out loud to us.

COATES: Oh, I would’ve loved that.

GROSS: It was great. And she explained all of the, like – I never heard that word before. She explained all those words, she explained the meaning, and it just became beautiful. So I don’t want anyone to think I’m opposed to Shakespeare because he’s not relatable (laughter).

COATES: No. No, no, no. No, no, no. No, I mean, conferring then on younger strengths. I mean, like, younger – that’s “Hamlet.” But, like, all of that language is incredible. It’s beautiful, beautiful language. And, you see, we as writers, what we should be doing – and what I try to teach my kids to do – is, like, your job is to use all of these tools that you have, even in ways that people, you know, may not think are correct or would not automatically occur to them, to clarify as much as you possibly can. And sometimes those are words that people don’t normally use. In my case, oftentimes it is that.

GROSS: Well, let’s take another break here. If you’re just joining us, my guest is Ta-Nehisi Coates. His new book is called “The Message.” We’ll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

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GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates. Coates is best known for his book “Between The World And Me,” which won a National Book Award, written in the form of a letter to his 15-year-old son about what it means to be Black and male in America, and his Atlantic magazine cover story, “The Case For Reparations.” His new book, “The Message,” is about his reflections on race, slavery, colonialism and identity on trips to South Carolina, Senegal and Israel and the West Bank.

So now that your son is 24, what does he think of “Between The World And Me,” which was – what does he think now of it? – because it’s written in the form of a letter to him.

COATES: Yeah. You know, we don’t talk about it, man. I mean, and it’s not even like we can’t. It’s just like the books are for the world, you know? And I know that’s odd to say, given that it was addressed to him. But, you know, I think, as I said at the time, you know, that really was a device to establish intimacy with the reader. And so, you know, our conversations are probably a lot more boring (laughter), you know, than, you know, hey; what do you think about my work? He does have “The Message,” and he was very much enjoying “The Message.” I don’t think he’s finished yet, but he was enjoying that.

GROSS: Nevertheless, it gives him some notoriety that he might like or not like…

COATES: Yeah.

GROSS: …To be the son that this famous book is addressed to.

COATES: Yeah. I’m sorry about that for him. I am sorry about that for him. I think – and I’ve never ever really asked him this directly, but just knowing him, I think he’s the kind of kid that would like to succeed on the name of being Samori Coates and not being Ta-Nehisi Coates’ son, Samori Coates.

GROSS: You lived in Paris for a year. I don’t know how good your French is, but it’s probably not quite as good as your English.

COATES: No, no. (Speaking French).

(LAUGHTER)

GROSS: And so what was it like for you to spend a year in a place where you couldn’t use your greatest gift, which is language? I mean, you could use it but not to its…

COATES: Yeah.

GROSS: …Fullest extent.

COATES: It was thrilling.

GROSS: Why was that thrilling?

COATES: Well, there’s a part in the book where I talk about – you know, where I’m in Dakar. And it’s, like, either – the second day I’m there, I believe. And I’m trying to figure out how to eat, you know, how to get lunch. And all I have is, you know, my mangled French, and they’re speaking, you know, a mix of French and Wolof. And I’ve been recommended to this restaurant, and I walk in. And I just sort of stand there, and nobody says anything or does anything, and I have to figure out how to get to the table. And it’s really not that big of a deal, but it stressed me out. And I am not somebody who likes horror movies or roller coasters, but what I discovered was I am a thrill-seeker. And, like, that moment of having to figure out how to navigate ultimately getting to my table and then sitting there with this bowl of heaping rice and fish – I felt so incredible at that moment.

And Paris and France and, I think, to some extent, anywhere in the world you are where you don’t speak the language and English is not the predominant thing is like that. You go outside, and you feel like you’re on roller skates the whole time, and everybody else is just walking normally. That is beautiful. That discomfort is – like, that’s the stuff of life for me, you know? Like, that’s – and that’s where I should be. I shouldn’t be somewhere where people are, you know, telling me, you know, how honored a writer I am and how great I am and how much they love my books. No, no, no, no. I need to be somewhere where people don’t care, where I’m falling over myself, where I’m not conjugating correctly, where I’m tripping because that’s the place where I’m actually getting stronger. You know, I loved it. I still do love it.

GROSS: Ta-Nehisi Coates, thank you so much for coming back to our show.

COATES: Thanks for having me, Terry.

GROSS: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book is called “The Message.” Our interview was recorded last Thursday. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guest will be actor, comedian and activist John Leguizamo. His latest project is an ambitious docuseries on PBS about the history of Latinos in the Americas, covering thousands of years from the pre-Columbian Inca, Maya, and Aztec civilizations to the fight for Latino civil rights. I hope you’ll join us. To keep up with what’s on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @NPRFreshAir.

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GROSS: FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Sam Briger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Joel Wolfram and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producers are Molly Seavy-Nesper and Sabrina Siewert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. Our co-host is Tonya Mosley. I’m Terry Gross.

(SOUNDBITE OF GINO AMATO’S “ROUND MIDNIGHT”) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.