The Message

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

What was the justifiably noble interest that required tear-gassing protesters blocks from the Capitol, or the deployment of secret police in Portland, or the literal cracking of heads in Buffalo? White supremacists came to understand this, too, and though violence was never forsworn, by the end of the summer they had learned a lesson: The war might be raging in the streets, but it could never be defeated there, because what they were ultimately fighting was the word.

The statues and pageantry can fool you. They look like symbols of wars long settled, fought on behalf of men long dead. But their Redemption is not about honoring a past. It’s about killing a future.