This episode of The Ezra Klein Show was a pleasure. Ta-Nehisi Coates joined me in Brooklyn for part of the Why We’re Polarized tour. His description of the book may be my favorite yet. It is, he says, “a cold, atheist book.”
We talk about what that means, and from there go into some of the harder questions raised not so much by the book but by American history itself. Then Coates asked me a question I never expected to hear from him: Is there anything I could say to leave him with some hope? Don’t miss this one.
A lightly edited excerpt from our discussion follows. You can listen to our whole conversation on The Ezra Klein Show.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I think to the extent that you see real power changing in this country, you see it in culture rather than politics. This is why people find Black Panther infuriating — it has nothing to do with the content. But you get all of these responses like, “Why do I have to like this? Why is this being rammed down my throat?” I…
