The Poverty of Anti-Wokeness

Ten years ago, Ta-Nehisi Coates, then a rising writer at The Atlantic, attended a gathering of liberal journalists at the White House. On his blog, Coates had taken a dim view of the post-racial era that had supposedly dawned in 2008, but in a previous encounter with Obama, he had refrained from voicing his criticisms. He decided to be more adversarial that day in 2013. In an exchange with the president, he highlighted the failure of the Affordable Care Act to directly target racial disparities in health-care access. The president defended his record, and the two sparred briefly. Afterward, Obama took Coates aside and told him: “Don’t despair.”