Post #3
The interviewer, Michelle, started the session by giving the
audience a brief backstory of Ta-Nehisi Coates. She acknowledged Coates' work
and enumerated his accolades. At the very beginning the first question she
directed to Coates was similar to an ice-breaker. The question posed tied
directly to a recent event that Coates was involved and asked him why he
dedicated the National Book Award to his friend Prince Jones. This question was
raised to show that the interviewer did her part of the research and found a
segway to ease the interview towards the direction of Coates' beliefs and the
issues of African Americans abused by the police.
The interviewer prepped the interview by doing research on cases
of police brutalities on African Americans over the past years. She knew that
these incidents would be ideal to connect with Coates' memoir and the topic of
double-bias of whites and blacks, when it comes to the treatments and
law-abiding. Therefore, right after Coates finished answering the question in
regards to Prince Jones, Michelle followed a second question that’s also
related to an African American shot by a police for nothing.
From the interview, it was evident that the interviewer was not
prepared for Coates’ answer to his friend Prince Jones, because not only didn’t
she ask any follow up questions, but she moved on to the next topic. If I were
to conduct an interview with Coates, I would dig deeper into his personal life
and the incidents that made him evolved into the person he is. Furthermore, I would
ask him a bold question of a solution to this reoccurring problem, or maybe
according to Coates, there would be no solution. However, it would still be an
interesting topic to explore. After all, the audience who are familiar with
Coates work doesn’t need a similar rendition of his memoir.
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