A writer who once openly criticized first responders of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is slated to speak on the campus of West Point Military Academy next month.
Fox News reports that Ta-Nehisi Coates will hold a lecture April 12 hosted by the Department of English and Philosophy. Coates writes for The Atlantic and is controversial because of what he's said about race relations.
According to Fox, Coates wrote this passage in his book titled "Between The World And Me:"
"They were not human to me," he wrote about the first responders at the World Trade Center during the 2001 terror attack. "Black, white, or whatever, they were menaces of nature; they were the fire, the comet, the storm, which could — with no justification — shatter my body."
He also called "White America" a "syndicate" designed to "dominate and control our bodies."
Coates has also penned an essay called "The Case for Reparations."
Last week, Coates was the keynote speaker at a Harvard event about slavery. According to the Harvard Gazette, he called slavery a "big business."
"We talk about enslavement as though it were a bump in the road, and I tell people it's the road, it's the actual road," he added.
During that Harvard event, the Ivy League school publicly acknowledged its deep ties to slavery in the early days of the country.
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