The average American parent has no idea who Ta-Nehisi Coates is — and that would normally be a blessing. His writings on race offer nothing new or edifying. He is a darling of the intellectual left who advances its racialist philosophy through anecdote and grievance.

But his recent denunciation of Charlie Kirk in Vanity Fair should prompt parents to take notice. If your kids plan to attend a university — especially a public one — they will be taught Coates’ worldview: that America is a systemically racist nation steeped in “heteronormativity” and “exclusion.”

Coates substitutes personal narrative for reasoned debate, even as he cashes checks and accepts awards from the very nation he condemns.

Much of my career has been spent exposing the radical left’s capture of the humanities. The method is always the same: sweeping declarations, superficial evidence, and endless personal stories of mistreatment that become excuses for remaking the world. Coates’ work fits the pattern perfectly. It is not inspirational. It is self-pity repackaged as wisdom.

Caricaturing Charlie

In his postmortem of Kirk, Coates warns that memorializing him might overlook his faults. At first, that sounds like a truism — we all fall short. But funerals are not for airing grievances. They are for remembering what we loved in the departed. The “bad things” fade into insignificance, and the dead cannot defend themselves against unfair caricature.

Yet caricature is exactly what Coates serves up. He repeats leftist talking points with such confidence that casual readers may mistake them for facts. They are not. They are distortions that reveal the low academic rigor of today’s radical left. For Coates, everything revolves around feelings of “hate,” never truth or argument.

Feelings over reason

This has always been Coates’ style. He substitutes personal narrative for reasoned debate, even as he cashes checks and accepts awards from the very nation he condemns. The hypocrisy is obvious. Consider Ibram X. Kendi, another star in Coates’ circle, exposed for wasting millions meant to “end racism” while achieving nothing of the kind. The pattern is grievance rewarded, not results delivered.

What Coates really offers is a window into a mind shaped by anger, envy, and resentment. A man showered with praise and wealth should rejoice in the opportunities America provided and use his platform to inspire others. Instead, he insists that structural racism explains every hardship. He never considers alternative interpretations or the role of moral choices in shaping outcomes.

Staying in school, avoiding drugs, marrying before having children — these choices matter. The statistics are clear. None of them hinge on “structural racism.”

Kirk understood this. When confronted by students claiming that poverty forces crime, he rejected the premise. That view dehumanizes the poor, excuses immorality, and reduces human life to material conditions. Kirk countered with a vision rooted in responsibility, virtue, and perseverance.

Coates, by contrast, repeats the falsehood that Kirk hated immigrants and LGBTQ people. He didn’t. He hated the sins that enslave people. He loved them as fellow humans and wanted them freed through Christ. He urged compliance with immigration laws not out of hate but out of respect for the rule of law — the same standard applied to Americans abroad. These facts are easily verifiable if one is willing to look.

The hypocrisy goes deeper. When Jimmy Kimmel was recently suspended, comedian Jim Gaffigan urged people to read his words directly rather than rely on secondhand distortions. Good advice. Why won’t the left follow it when it comes to Charlie Kirk? President Barack Obama claimed he never censored opponents, but his record shows otherwise. For decades, the left has policed speech, thought, and hiring.

A grievance parade

Coates claims to fear that American history is being covered up. What he really fears is that his interpretation of history has been challenged and found wanting.

He dwells on slavery but ignores the hundreds of thousands of young men who died to end it and the countless Christians who fought for abolition. He invokes Jim Crow and redlining but skips over the Democratic Party’s role in enforcing them. He wields “racism” as a bludgeon against dissent. But that weapon has lost its power.

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Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company

American history is human history — the story of sinners, yes, but also of a nation shaped by Christians who proclaimed that true freedom comes only through Christ. Charlie Kirk preached that message. He affirmed the dignity of his opponents by debating them. He loved his country, he upheld its laws, he wanted its people to flourish — but above all, he loved Christ and urged students to turn to Him as Savior.

That is what we should remember. And that is what Coates cannot understand.