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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.

A drive-by of thoughts--The 1985 Edition

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Aug 23 2008, 11:38 AM ET Comment

Damn. Julius Carry is dead. Sho'Nuff is a great great figure from my childhood. Maybe I'll start calling myself the Shogun of Harlem. Anyway, more proof that us blacks and Asians go back like sunflower seeds and quarter waters. The Last Dragon marks a break for me, it was like right after this flick hit that the city began to change. This is, like, the end of the kitchy 70s Jackson Five innocence, and the beginning of Just-Ice and "Latoya," Colors, "PSK," Eric Dickerson and Mike Tyson.

Jesus, Vanity had a some beautiful eyes. And this idea of Bruce-Leroy as the Virgin-Warrior--isn't he the patron-saint of black nerds everywhere? Isn't he who we all thought we were? Weren't we all just waiting for a doe-eyed Vanity to show us what it was like? Then we got jumped by some project niggers, got screamed on by a couple hood-rats. The city made us harder, and waiting made us weak. I think I was better for that lesson. But then I watch shit like this and get to reminiscing on 1985, right before the Crack era hit with full force, and I start thinking about what we left behind, on what all of us lost when we reached for the mask.




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