-Our next guest is a best-selling author
and National Book Award winner.
His novel, "The Water Dancer," is available in paperback
November 17th, and the adaptation of his book,
"Between the World and Me,"
airs November 21st on HBO and HBO Max.
Please welcome back to the show Ta-Nehisi Coates.
How are you, Ta-Nehisi?
-Hey! How's it going? Nice to be here, Seth.
-It's always great to see you.
For my money, you've written some of the best
journalistic pieces on the presidency,
on the country, over the last decade.
You obviously have laid out your differences of opinion
with Joe Biden over the years, yet also made it very clear
that he's a better choice if the other choice is Donald Trump.
Based on that, I'm assuming you were not
celebrating in the streets on Saturday,
but how did you feel about the people that were?
-I wasn't. I was not celebrating in the streets.
That's just not something I would do.
That's not how I interact with the world.
That actually is not even any reflection on Joe Biden.
I understand the people who were.
It's been a tough four years. I totally, totally get it.
I do worry that maybe we do not know how dark
it's about to get, you know, again, really, really quickly.
But at the same time, people are human beings.
I understand it. I get it.
You know, Trump was a different, you know, magnitude, you know,
of corruption and a threat to the state and to democracy.
So I understand it. I understand it.
It wouldn't be what I would do, but I get it.
-I want to talk about the sort of two different sides of this
that I think people are weighing, which is, one --
And you've said about Donald Trump,
you're not necessarily a racist if you vote for him,
but his racism is not disqualifying for you
if you vote for him. -That's right.
-And he got more votes than he did last time.
On the other hand, you have Joe Biden,
you have Kamala Harris got more votes than anyone.
So, how do you sort of see the two working in concert?
-Um...Well, you know, I-I don't know.
It's distressing that Donald Trump got more votes.
I think we had just a record level of participation,
so the sheer amount of Americans that were involved
in the process was beyond anything that we'd ever seen.
I think that's a good thing. You know?
I would prefer a world where more people voted
and my side lost the argument
to a world where the other side worked to suppress
the numbers of people who voted and we lost because of that.
Democracy -- you know, you don't win every battle
in a democracy, and that's fine, so I was heartened by that.
I know how to deal with losing the argument.
You just go back. You figure it out.
You try to make the argument again.
So, you know, while on some level it is depressing,
and there's all sorts of things I can say about the appeal,
you know, that Trump ultimately had
and what that says about the country.
I think more people participating is a good thing.
I'm not sure that, you know,
the party in power right now currently believes that.
-I think it's safe to say they don't believe that.
-It's pretty safe. Pretty safe.
-Hey, I want to talk to you -- -I'm going out on a limb there.
[ Both laugh ]
-I want to talk to you about the fact that not just
"Between the World and Me" is about to be a TV show,
but now "The Water Dancer" is gonna be a film.
What is it like for you to turn over your work
to people that will then adapt it for a different medium?
-So, uh...difficult. [ Laughs ]
Very difficult.
With "Between the World and Me," I had the great luxury
of turning it over to a very, very old friend of mine,
Kamilah Forbes, who goes back to my days at Howard University.
So that was pretty easy, and she did a staging
here in New York that I thought, you know, went off pretty well,
so I trust her implicitly.
She's also my wife's best friend,
so that makes all of that very, very easy...
-Yeah, yeah, yeah. -...to do.
You know, as for "The Water Dancer,"
I'm gonna be the one writing the screenplay
and doing the adaptation, so that shows you
about how much I trust people... [ Both laugh ]
...to adapt the work. So, for good or for ill,
you know, we'll find out how that goes.
-You know, another thing you did a lot of the ground work on,
and we've talked about this before,
but you had this incredible run
on the "Black Panther" comic-book series.
This was before it was a film.
And you also mentioned knowing people from your Howard days.
You knew Chadwick Boseman from your Howard days, as well.
What was that whole journey like?
-Uh...Well, you don't know that you're on a journey,
and so it's only with his regrettable passing
that, you know, I've become wistful
and begun to think about it.
You know, I met Chad, wildly enough,
when I was a student journalist at the newspaper
and he was leading a protest at the university.
And actually leading the protest was Kamilah Forbes,
who is adapting "Between the World and Me,"
so it's the way that these worlds come together.
And I was a journalist at that time,
so I was reporting on what was a student takeover,
and Chad was one of the leaders, if not the leader.
So I knew him as, you know,
a student and a young man of really strong principle.
I also knew him as an artist,
not just as an actor, but as a writer,
as a director at that time.
He is the last person in the world
that I would have thought would become who he became,
not because of any lack of talent, not because of any,
you know, lack of ability or intellect or anything like that.
But Chad was so principled, man.
He wanted what he wanted, and he wanted how he wanted it.
And, you know, that was gonna be it.
And so it's shocking to me to watch what he ultimately became,
and yet when he was chosen to be Black Panther,
I couldn't think of anybody who would be better,
because even back in our Howard days,
he had that same sort of regal bearing
that he brought to T'Challa.
It wasn't a total reach for Chad to do that.
And it's a huge, huge loss to see him gone.
-You saw him, I guess, it was probably at the premiere
of "Black Panther"?
Is this the photo we have of you guys together?
-Oh, you guys blew that up. I did, yes.
Yes, that's myself, my wife, and Chad, yeah.
-That's fantastic. And it really is.
What a journey to have been in college with somebody
and then sort of help -- I don't know --
rewrite the character that made him so famous.
-Yeah. That was -- It was such a coincidence, too.
It was, like, weird. Like I, you know...
Like, from my perspective, I, you know,
wanted to be a comic-book writer when I was a kid,
but I never thought it was actually gonna happen.
And I know the strongest part of Chad was, you know,
the writing and directing part.
Here he becomes this huge leading man.
You know, the night that picture was taken,
it was at the premiere, and I saw him, you know,
across the room. And he, you know, had this --
He never -- He never changed.
The celebrity part of him
actually never changed who he was.
And he looked... like he did not enjoy
being in a giant party,
surrounded by a bunch of people he didn't know.
And my thinking was, you know, having had about .001%
of a taste of that, I'm not even gonna go over
and talk to Chad. I'll see Chad when I see him.
My wife was so excited, went over and talked to him,
and he came over and wanted to take this picture
and talk and everything.
You know, he was always just so good about that sort of thing.
I obviously didn't know at the time that he was sick.
-That part of it is so tragic and so retroactively --
retrospectively, I should say,
so impressive what he was going through.
-Yeah, no, he carried it.
You know, and whatever pain that he was going through,
which I assume to be quite considerable,
he carried it. -Well, thank you
for sharing those stories about Chad,
and thank you so much for being here.
It's always such a pleasure to talk to you, Ta-Nehisi.
-Thanks so much, Seth. Thanks for having me.