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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.

Everything is bad for black people. Always.

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jul 20 2008, 3:41 PM ET Comment

Heh, back in the day white flight was the worst thing that ever happened to black people. Now it's allegedly reversing (I'm really not convinced that there are more white people who want to live in cities, than those who want to live in exurbs, for instance) and it's still a problem for black people. The Wall Street Journal looks at more whites moving into cities and blacks moving out and concludes there must be a crisis afoot:

In Washington, a historically black church is trying to attract white members to survive. Atlanta's next mayoral race is expected to feature the first competitive white candidate since the 1980s. San Francisco has lost so many African-Americans that Mayor Gavin Newsom created an "African-American Out-Migration Task Force and Advisory Committee" to help retain black residents. 

"The city is experiencing growth, yet we're losing African-American families disproportionately," Mr. Newsom says. When that happens, "we lose part of our soul."

Oh no, not our soul!  A black church actually trying to attract white members, a white guy actually running for office in Atlanta, and a big city mayor who has to fight to keep black people. Race war, indeed. Sometimes, there really is no way to win with media. Part of the reason cities like Atlanta are becoming white is because black folks (like myself) who grew up caged in cities want their taste of the stereotypical American dream and thus are leaving. But there never is any black agency--to be African-American is to be an automaton responding to either white racism or cultural pathology. No way you could actually have free will. Race war, always Race war. And the whites win. Again.



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