I kinda hate that statement. It's so whiny. If you substitute black where the white is in the message, you'd say that person is a racist. It entirely depends upon the assumption of victimhood for its force and validity. It implies the broad US electorate votes on the basis of skin colour, which is both presumptuous and disgraceful.
Actually, Obama proved the opposite. He defeated two white guys, who were also well educated. He won because he was a good candidate with a hopeful message who happened to be of mixed ancestry, and not in spite of his skin colour. His campaign was notable for the fact he didn't claim victimhood for himself. He ran as a person, not as a skin colour. People responded by valuing him for who he was. He just had to be better than the candidates he opposed. And he was.
Trump defeated a whole bunch of well educated white guys and a well educated white woman. The only black candidate he faced was actually so weak I was amazed he did as well as he did. Trump won not because he was white and rich but because his message resonated in the places that counted.
The Coates quote's the sort of divisive statement which breeds a sort of lazy conceit in a class of people ready to be branded collectively as victims, and at the same time it prints fresh Trump supporters. If black people talk that way, it justifies white people doing the same thing. Which is what is happening.
Identity politics sucks. It creates what its proponents claim to fear.
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