One of the things CBS Mornings co-anchor Tony Dokoupil was ridiculed for by his woke critics regarding his interview with anti-Israel author Ta-Nehisi Coates was his suggestion that an extremist might have Coates’ book “The Message,” which contains an essay on his trip “to Palestine,” in his backpack.
“I have to say, when I read the book, I imagine if I took your name out of it, took away the awards, the acclaim, took the cover off the book, publishing house goes away, the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist,” Dokoupil said during the course of his back and forth exchange with Coates on September 30th.
The hard-hitting interview, where Dokoupil did what reporters are supposed to do in asking tough questions and challenging the premises of people in positions of influence and/or power, caused eruptions among some in the CBS newsroom.
Struggle sessions have reportedly been held by offended colleagues, where yelling, crying, and cursing are alleged to have gone on, all because Dokoupil committed the crime of engaging in actual journalism for a change.
In an update to this story, it will surprise pretty much no one reading this that Coates basically confirmed Dokoupil’s extremist backpack suggestion in another interview he did this week, this one with former “Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, who now hosts a podcast called “What Now?”
In it, they talked about the segment with Dokoupil, with Noah “flabbergasted” and outraged that Coates’ word wasn’t treated as sacrosanct by Dokoupil. As for Coates, he compared slavery to the so-called Palestinian plight before strongly implying that if he was a 20-year-old Gazan who had been through what he said Israel had allegedly put Palestinians through, he might not view the 10/7 terrorist attacks as going “too far” (transcribed from video):
“And I haven’t said this out loud, but I think about it a lot. Were I 20-years-old, born into Gaza, which is a giant open-air jail. And what I mean by that is if my father is a fisherman and he goes too far out into the sea, he might get shot by somebody off, you know, a side of Israeli boats.If my mother picks the olive trees and she gets too close to the wall, she might be shot. If my little sister has, you know, cancer and she needs treatment because there are no facilities to do that in Gaza and I don’t get the right permit, she might die.And I grow up under that oppression and that poverty and a wall comes down – am I also strong enough or even constructive in such a way where I say this is too far, I don’t know that I am. You know, I don’t I don’t. I don’t I don’t I don’t know that I am.”
Watch:
As a side note, this also happened:
For reference, the full interview can be viewed here.
But back to Coates’ eye-opening admission, the facts, as you might suspect, are at odds with his lead-up to the question of whether he could view the atrocities committed by Hamas on 10/7 as going “too far.”
Conservative commentator AG Hamilton was among the many who called him out:
This is a perfect example of how Ta-Nehisi Coates’ entire shtick is based on ignorance/lies being used to justify hate and violence. And he counts on the audience not knowing any better.As an example, there were 36 hospitals in Gaza pre 10/7, and Palestinians didn’t need a permit to go to any of them. They were controlled by Gaza authorities. The extent of their capability was completely reliant on Hamas’ allowance since there were billions provided by the international community to support those hospitals.Yet here he invents a scenario that justifies the murder and rape of innocent people based on his sister not getting a permit to be treated.The issues in Gaza were completely their own creation. The “open-air prison” myth is obviously nonsense. How did they build an entire military infrastructure including tunnels under every corner and weapons (inc rockets) in every other building if it was a prison?Any restrictions were based on them electing a terrorist group that was devoted only to destruction and violence, including oppressing Palestinians, but TNC’s entire book just leaves that part out. Hamas isn’t mentioned. The reason for restrictions doesn’t exist in his world.
Bingo. Oh, and by the way, a friendly reminder:
— Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via Twitter. —
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