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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.

Barack makes it easier for white people to tell black people they look like Tiger Woods

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jan 15 2009, 12:00 PM ET Comment

OK, so not really. But the Times thinks Obama is making it easier for white people to talk to black people about that ancient divide. Not around these parts. Only black people are allowed to speak over here. I blog assuming that everyone of my white readers has, at one point or another, entertained themselves with a thought of a return to slavery. You're all racist. And you know it. Cracker-ass-cracker. I hate a cracker-ass-cracker!! Except the people who run the Atlantic! They're cool!

On a serious note, yesterday I was interviewed by one of my journalistic hereos, Terry Gross. Toughest interview I've ever had, bar none. She was, as she was on the air, not mean but just hitting you with questions that you'd really have no way to prepare for. And they weren't gotcha questions, so much as they were just things that would only occur to her. At one point she asked me about the word "postracial," and, somewhat predictibly, I went on my standard riff about how much I hated the word. But then she noted to variety of the commenters we have here, and how I'm always engaging them, and asked if "postracial" could be applied to this site?

It was a good question, one that, in all honesty, I'm actually still thinking about.


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