Ta-Nehisi Coates has penned a statement in regards to the outrage Gayle King faced after a portion of her interview with WNBA star Lisa Leslie surfaced online recently.
The portion of the interview found King asking Leslie if she thought the 2003 rape allegations against Kobe Bryant complicated his legacy, and if the incident should be left in the past or "is it really part of his history."
In response, Leslie said that Bryant's legacy is "not complicated" despite the allegation, before adding: "I don't think it's something that we should keep hanging over his legacy."
On Sunday, Coates took to Instagram to address the backlash King faced for the question, speaking on his own experiences with the journalist before addressing the controversy.
"It is perhaps naive to expect black men to be better — oppression is always demeaning and rarely ennobling. But black men, perhaps more than other men, have some inkling of what it’s like to have a body that can be taken for someone else’s pleasure," Coates wrote. "Indeed, we know more than we want to say, because if we ever said it all we might never stop crying."
"Maybe that really is the root of this. It’s certainly not about 'protecting' anyone’s memory or their families. Men who want to hurt have been using the language of 'protection' all my life. It’s certainly isn’t about Weinstein. Only a fool tolerates serial killing because Ted Bundy was once a neighbor. Whatever it’s about, there’s really no way to be neutral here," he continued. "Gayle King dared speak of a man as though he were one, and a lot of us fucking lost it. We did not calmly express our dislike of the question. We were too weak for that. We threatened. We dragged. And we attacked. A friend, watching all this said, 'damn, Gayle has a son.' To which I could only respond, 'these dudes have sons too.' And this is what we’re teaching them. It’s wrong. We should want more. We should be better."
