BOOK ANALYSIS
If Apartheid is Wrong, Then It Should Be Condemned in All Places?
Why Ta-Nehisi Coates warns, “your oppression will not save you.”
To say that Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new book, The Message, and his subsequent interviews are ruffling feathers would be an understatement. This may be because many Americans have been conditioned to see the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians as too complex to navigate. Like a crew without a captain, lost at sea, they imagine we don’t have the intellectual capacity or experience to find our way to land. However, Coates offers a perspective of moral clarity in a storm of trepidation. In sharing his experiences traveling to Israel and the West Bank, his book has become a lighthouse.
On seeing cisterns holding rainwater on Palestinian roofs, a symbol of their restricted access to what should be a shared resource, Ta-Nehisi Coates noted, “Israel had advanced beyond Jim Crow South and segregated not just the pools and fountains but the water itself.” Of course, in America, Black people have less access to clean water and air than White people. This is a symptom of institutional racism. But his comparison provided lucid insight into the deplorable conditions Palestinians endure. A consequence few have considered. Coates notes that Israelis consumed “nearly…
