Ta-Nehisi Coates

The writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was harshly critical of my response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. In an article in Vanity Fair, he suggested I was whitewashing Kirk’s legacy, comparing it to the whitewashing of the Southern cause after the Civil War. So I wanted to have Coates on the show to talk out our disagreement, as well as some deeper questions that I think exist underneath it about the work of politics. What should the left do about the fact that so many Americans share Kirk’s views? What kinds of disagreements should we try to bridge? When is that work moral and necessary, and when is it a betrayal? This episode contains strong language.

In his new book of essays, “The Message,” Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about a trip he took to Israel and the West Bank in May 2023. “I felt lied to,” he told me. “I felt lied to by my craft. I felt lied to by major media organizations.” Coates’s essay is a searing portrait of Palestinian life under Israeli rule. It has also been criticized for leaving much out: Hamas is never mentioned. Nor is Oct. 7. Nor are any of the peace processes. So I asked him on the show to discuss what he saw when he was there and what he chose to leave outside the frame.

You’ve heard plenty by now about the fights over teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. But behind those skirmishes is something deeper: A fight over the story we tell about America. Why that fight has so gripped our national discourse is the question of this podcast: What changes when a country’s sense of its own history changes? What changes when who gets to tell that story changes? What are the stakes here, and why now? My guests for this conversation need little introduction. Nikole Hannah-Jones is an investigative journalist for the New York Times Magazine where she led the 1619 Project, and, before that, did incredible work on racial inequality in the American education system. Ta- Nehisi Coates is the author of books including “Between the World and Me” and “The Water Dancer,” essays including “The Case for Reparations,” and, for Marvel Comics, “Captain America” and “Black Panther.” Each of them has won more prestigious awards for their work than I could possibly list here, and both will be taking faculty positions at Howard University. We discuss the 1619 Project, whether patriotism can coexist with shame and regret, the political power of American exceptionalism, the cracked foundations of American democracy, how journalism is and should be taught, our relationships to Twitter, what journalists can learn from children and much more. Nikole Hannah-Jones book recommendations: Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 by W.E.B Du Bois The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson Ta-Nehisi Coates book recommendations: Postwar by Tony Judt Avengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. “The Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rogé Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.