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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.

Same old race-baiters

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Oct 13 2008, 12:41 PM ET Comment

Adam gives some much needed historic context to the whole socialist/Leninist/communist/Maoist slur deployed against Obama. People think this is a new tactic--It isn't:

The feeling that black-rights activists were part of a front for communism and socialism was widespread. Jerry Falwell famously criticized "the sincerity and intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations." Falwell charged, "It is very obvious that the Communists, as they do in all parts of the world, are taking advantage of a tense situation in our land, and are exploiting every incident to bring about violence and bloodshed." For the agents of intolerance, things haven't changed much. On October 9, a McCain supporter told the candidate that he was angry about "socialists taking over our country." McCain told him he was right to be angry.

The right wing continues to link the fight for black equality with socialism and communism. At the website of conservatism's flagship publication, National Review, conservatives like Andy McCarthy argue whether Obama is "more Maoist than Stalinist," and National Review writer Lisa Schiffren explicitly argued this summer that Obama must have communist links based on his interracial background. Schiffren mused, "for a white woman to marry a black man in 1958, or 60, there was almost inevitably a connection to explicit Communist politics."

Same shit boys. Different toilet.



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