(Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post)Ta-Nehisi Coates’ powerful new essay, “The First White President,” offers up an indictment of white America — and white punditry — that is more sweeping than it first appears. The weak, wrongheaded “identity politics” narrativeThe pundit narrative Coates targets holds that Trump’s election was not driven by his white electorate’s racism. It submerges Trump’s use of white identity politics, thus whitewashing (as it were) away the culpability of white racism and white tribalism in Trump’s victory. Indeed, none of this is to absolve America — or white America — of its sin in electing Trump. If Trump is our first white president, by virtue of his determined effort to erase the historical fact of the first black presidency and the advances it wrought, then a great swath of America is responding: Whose white president?

Source: Washington Post September 10, 2017 12:34 UTC