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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.

McCain now openly courting racists

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jun 15 2008, 6:58 PM ET Comment

Oh, I'm sorry. I meant people who simply "resent black people racially." Because there are no more racists. We know this because Geraldine "not a racist" Ferraro told us so. McCain hosted a bunch of Hillary supporters, according to Ben Smith, and among them was the most famous "Not A  Racist" of our time, sucking up her 15 minutes:

McCain's staff extended the last-minute invitation to Clinton die-hards, including a founder of a group called "Party Unity, My Ass" (PUMA), and substantial numbers came from Washington and New York. They represented passionate campaign volunteers and supporters, but they're essentially a marginal group in Clinton's orbit, including no one with a prominent campaign role, public office or close relationship with the candidate.

Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina stayed to mingle with the crowd, whose members also included Clinton backer Harriet Christian, made momentarily famous on YouTube for getting ejected from the Rules & Bylaws press area.

Yeah, that would be the same Harriet Christian who called Barack Obama "an inadequate black male" and then defended it on Fox. The same Harriet Christian who said "99 percent of the blacks don't know what they're doing." But she's not a racist. Because racism is no longer acceptable in America, so it's fine that McCain is courting her. This is when you see that a feminism which has no use for Sojurner Truth, which sees Shirley Chisolhm only as a steroid in the oppression olympics, which has at its core, a disbelief in the very existence of black women is really just White Power in a bad Halloween mask. Stop insulting us and acting like you stand for anything more than right of white women to join in in a collective smack-down of uppity, inadequate nigras. Play your position. That's black people talk for "Less Susan B. Anthony; More hoods and sheets, please."



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