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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.

If you shoot you ain't the real Pretty Tone

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Oct 7 2008, 7:52 PM ET Comment

Sorry I didn't mention this, but Lady Wesley reminded me to tell you guys I was at the New Yorker Festival this weekend with some people whose brains are about twice the size of my own. Anyway it was fun. I won't lie dunny, I was scared as hell. Like really really really scared. Like shook from the moment I got the invite. Still, it was a lot of fun. 

The highlight of the whole thing was Kenyatta getting to meet David Remnick. We've been together for ten years down and in the worse times--I'm talking making like $4,000 in a year--all she said was "Keep writing, baby. Keep writing." Now, less you be touched by my baby's selflessness, since she was like, 12, she's been reading the New Yorker. So half her point in supporting me was the hope that I'd end up at one of those shin-digs. I got a career. She got her party. Not a bad deal.


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