Earlier this week, professor and social activist Cornel West took aim at The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates in a column for The Guardian. In his piece, West criticized Coates as the “neoliberal face of the black freedom struggle” while claiming that Coates “fetishizes white supremacy.”

Now, in the fallout of West’s criticism, Coates has deleted his widely followed Twitter account.

Late last night, Coates highlighted a number of instances of people co-signing and endorsing West’s column. Eventually, he noted that white nationalist Richard Spencer embraced West’s opinion, retweeting this tweet.

It feels like this might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for Ta-Nehisi Coates — Richard Spencer endorsing Cornel West’s criticism of him. pic.twitter.com/GrlZEcnzMj — Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) December 19, 2017

This then led to Coates tweeting “feminists, white supremacists and leftists all in agreement. wow.”

No wonder Ta-Nehisi Coates deleted his account. Sounds like a bad Twitter smoothie. pic.twitter.com/6QTTiQSwMI — #SpreadTruth (@babiecee) December 19, 2017

The award-winning writer followed that up by stating that he “didn’t get in it for this” while telling his followers “peace, y’all. I’m out.”

Richard Spencer agreed with Cornel West’s article about Ta-Nehisi Coates, and TNC had enough, said, “peace, y’all. I’m out.” Then deactivated. pic.twitter.com/bIdkozg9hs — Zachary ?? (@zatchry) December 19, 2017

And, minutes later, his Twitter account was no more.

In the wake of West’s takedown of the influential author, New Yorker’s Jelani Cobb — a friend of Coates’ — came to his defense, stating he was “frankly embarrassed” by West’s column, noting the description of Coates as a “neoliberal” was off-base, and highlighting problematic moments in West’s past.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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