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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.

Post-racialism--the mortal enemy of my career

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Dec 15 2008, 10:00 AM ET Comment

I don't know about you guys, but this whole post-racial thing is ruining my life. Before 2008, I made a decent living doing what all black writers do--telling white people they were racist. It was a simple life. I'd call up a one of my effete, liberal, New York, latte-sipping, preferably Jewish, editors and pitch my latest diatribe inveighing against the evils of Trent Lott, Giuliani and Vanilla Ice. I'd write it up in five minutes, send it in and a check would appear a month later. It was an easy care-free life. But this Barack Obama thing, this "from the snows of Iowa" bit, this whole "there is the United States of America" spiel, is killing my mojo. 

For instance, I saw this story today headlined "Many Insisting Barack Obama Is Not Black." When I read the nut graff, I thought I had a winner:

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial _ or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" _ has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race.

Any time I see race used in the vicinity of the words like "crescendo" or "shattered assumptions,"  one word pops in my head--Payday. I thought I'd just write up a quick post showing how the unwillingness of White America to accept Obama as black, demonstrated that racism had truly wormed its way into all of their black hears. Then I'd mix up some Thug Passion, and invoice the Atlantic for $1000. It was going to be lovely

But, then I actually read the article, and from what I can tell there are only two people in the story--one of them being some dude writing into a local Florida paper--who actually constitute this crescendo. And that's when I realized I couldn't write my post, that I wouldn't be a getting a check from the Atlantic.

Which leads me to my real point, here. White folks--we have a problem. Seriously, how can I run a blog when you won't conform to the two-dimensional caricatures laid out for you by reputable news organizations like AP? What am I supposed to do now?

Hey, I know! I'll fashion a career attacking lazy-ass journalism, authored by reporters who've written the nut-graph and headline before they've even picked up the phone. I don't even have to do any excoriating! These guys parody themselves! Oh man, Thug Passion all around!


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