John McWhorter ― Ta-Nehisi Coates' flawed attack on Bernie Sanders

The case for new reparations to African-Americans is weak, says John McWhorter

(CNN) This week's big news on race is that Ta-Nehisi Coates has called out Sen. Bernie Sanders for failing to adequately oppose white supremacy.

Coates' piece in The Atlantic advocating reparations for black America was widely praised in 2014, and his book last year "Between the World and Me" has been a sensation, with Toni Morrison anointing Coates as today's James Baldwin.

Coates is dismayed that nevertheless, Sanders has dismissed the idea of trying to get Congress to pass a reparations bill as futile and also "divisive." To Coates, this means that Sanders is part of the problem that black America has had since the early 17th century.

However, Coates' attack on Sanders is premised on a weakness in his general take on black history, which, while charismatically expressed, is vastly oversimplified.

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