Ta-Nehisi Coates perfectly dismantled the Democratic Party’s blatant hypocrisy in denying requests for a Palestinian American speaker to address the Democratic National Convention in August.
During an interview Monday night with MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin at the Apollo Theater in New York, Coates criticized the Democratic Party for refusing to agree to requests from the Uncommitted Movement.
Coates took particular issue with the Democratic Party touting the names of activists like Fanny Lou Hamer and Shirley Chisolm, but balking at demands for inclusivity.
“And then I’m like, right, but who’s not on stage?” Coates said, as the audience applauded. “Who’s been pushed out of the frame?”
“And I’m hearing all of this talk about, you know, ‘woman’s right to choose’ and protecting the autonomy of women’s bodies, and yet I see on stage some of the very people who have put that autonomy in question,” Coates said.
The DNC’s lineup had included several Republican lawmakers and politicians, including Donald Trump’s former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, conservative talk show host Ana Navarro, and former Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger. In general, Kamala Harris’s campaign has made significant efforts to attract GOP and independent voters, aligning with voices such as former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney, a key architect of the Iraq War.
Harris is scheduled to appear with Cheney’s daughter, former Wyoming Republican Representative Liz Cheney, in Ripon, Wisconsin, the birthplace of the Republican Party Thursday, as part of that outreach to GOP and independent voters.
Coates described what it was like to join delegates from the Uncommitted Movement, who began a sit-in outside of the convention center after their requests to have a speaker were denied. The award-winning author said that when he saw members of the Central Park 5 addressing the convention, it sparked a thought.
“What I know is that when they were going through their stuff, the Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with them,” Coates said of the 5.
“They were dehumanized. They were pushed out of the frame,” he continued. “And I’m standing with people who have been pushed out the frame! You know what I mean? And I’m with people whose families are being bombed literally right now! Right now!”
Coates questioned how seriously one could take U.S. and Israeli promises of “Never Again,” while simultaneously funding and conducting a massive military operation in Gaza that has reportedly killed more than 41,500 Palestinians, including at least 16,500 children.
“We ought to hold folks accountable. Like I just, I don’t believe that you get to take Shirley Chisolm, I don’t believe you get to take Fanny Lou Hamer, and then bankroll those bombs to be dropped on people,” Coates said.
Ta-Nehisi Coates speaking last night on Uncommitted’s campaign at the Democratic National Convention. pic.twitter.com/SzB59zDpX1
— Uncommitted National Movement ???? (@uncommittedmvmt) October 2, 2024
Hamer testified before the DNC credentials committee in 1964 to challenge the seating of Mississippi’s all-white delegation to the convention, and advocated for the racially integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to have access to the national stage.
“If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America,” Hamer told the credentials committee. “Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hooks, because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?”
