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Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates - Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues for TheAtlantic.com and the magazine. He is the author of the memoir The Beautiful Struggle. More

Born in 1975, the product of two beautiful parents. Raised in West Baltimore—not quite The Wire, but sometimes ill all the same. Studied at the Mecca for some years in the mid-’90s. Emerged with a purpose, if not a degree. Slowly migrated up the East Coast with a baby and my beloved, until I reached the shores of Harlem. Wrote some stuff along the way.

Please No More Sisata Souljah Comparisons

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 1 2008, 3:45 PM ET Comment

It's popular for white commentators, for whom black people are merely theoretical, to wonder when Barack Obama will do something that will distance himself from black people. After "black America" is known kyrptonite to any successful endeavor. So here we have Richard Wolffe arguing that Wright represented Obama's Sista Souljah moment:

For a campaign that had little comment on Wright's media blitz on Monday, Obama's press conference was a complete reversal. Many pundits have wondered aloud why Barack Obama has not had a Sister Souljah moment in this campaign, evoking Bill Clinton's 1992 repudiation of the hip-hop star's inflammatory and racist comments. In Winston-Salem Obama went far beyond Clinton's criticism, disowning his former pastor—and running the risk of alienating a community on the South Side of Chicago that has been among his most ardent supporters.

Uhm no. No disrespect to my South Side brothers, but last time I checked, the "South Side of Chicago" didn't qualify as a national voting bloc. What Wolfe wants to say--but clearly has no evidence to prove--is that in dissing Wright, Obama showed his distance from black folks. Except that most black folks--and I bet most black folks on the South Side--think that Wright's performance on Monday was off the wall.

More to the point the "Sista Souljah moment" is the province of white folks who basically regard black people and the fight against racism as some sort of political tool to garner the votes of other more thuggish whites. There is a certain amoralism to all of this. In the minds of the MSM there's this idea that whites who, quite frankly, hold Obama to a higher standard because he's black are the real Americans, the beer swillers, gun-toters. This is when you see that the modern press does not exist to expose demagoguery but to be funnel for it.



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