Ta-Nehisi Coates calls out media, political power, and global injustice at St. Catherine University
At a powerful lecture at St. Catherine University, author Ta-Nehisi Coates challenged elite institutions to defend justice, urged political courage beyond elections, and connected struggles for liberation from the U.S. to Palestine.
Last Thursday at St. Catherine University’s O’Shaughnessy Hall, award-winning author Ta‑Nehisi Coates, often called the modern-day Toni Morrison, delivered a lecture that went far beyond the usual literary reading, tackling race, power, culture, and global justice.
Coates opened with a stark challenge to elite institutions: “Y’all are punks. Y’all are cowards.” He criticized universities and TV networks for compromising principles for prestige and profit rather than standing up to political pressure.
“These institutions, rich, prestigious, cower rather than confront. They compromise their principles instead of defending justice,” he said. Coates called out ABC for canceling the Jimmy Kimmel Show and CBS for softening coverage to help its parent company, Paramount, complete a merger with Skydance.
“When leaders threaten lives or roll back rights, the media too often rolls over. By staying quiet, by not pressing the issue, they enable harm.”
Turning to politics, Coates argued that individual leaders cannot dismantle entrenched systems. He traced continuity in American conservatism to Barry Goldwater, noting that political projects and loyalties outlast elections. Reflecting on reproductive rights and the assumption that Black leadership would guarantee progress, he said:
“The answer is, they were in the midst of a political project … loyal to ideas about how the world was supposed to be organized.” Coates expanded the discussion globally, recounting a trip to Palestine, which he called “probably the most eye-opening trip I’ve ever taken in my life.”
Drawing parallels between historical segregation in the U.S. and violence abroad, he said, “The same person that is murdering folks off the coast … is the same people sending troops into our city … the same people subsidizing the dropping of bombs on hospitals and schools. Either it’s going to be all of us, or it’s not going to be any of us.”
Culture, Coates argued, is central to power. “Culture decides who is human and who is not. Culture decides who can speak and who cannot,” he said, urging that meaningful change requires courage, vigilance, and a commitment to truth beyond casting ballots.
Reflecting on America’s historical inequality, Coates said Black Americans were repeatedly excluded from moments of national progress.
“So much of my work is about moments in time … where for a certain percentage of this country to have its happiness … we were left behind. We were left behind after Reconstruction. We were left behind while the country built its great middle class during President Roosevelt’s New Deal. I know what that is. I know what that feels like.”
He connected history to contemporary responsibility, framing justice as all-or-nothing: “For me to have so much of my work be rooted in the fact that … either it’s going to be all of us or it’s not going to be any of us… I have to be honest, I pulled the lever.
“I did feel great about it. But I think we now have an opportunity to do that,” he said, urging the audience to recognize that participation, courage and vigilance extend beyond a single election.
Coates also noted that White Nationalism fueled Donald Trump’s rise and criticized performative opposition to it.
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