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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 Obama hasn't appointed enough people named Ta-Nehisi

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jan 28 2009, 2:00 PM ET Comment

Or another people who attended HBCUs. Ugh. Jelani on the silly-ass Negro Nitpicking Sweepstakes:

A close second in the Negro Nitpicking Sweepstakes came the critique that Michelle Obama was wrong for not wearing at least one black designer on inauguration day. Um... she wore designs by a Latina and an Asian American -- tell me we're not back to the idiot days of the Obamas having to prove they're down for black folk. More importantly, her husband just appointed African Americans as UN Ambassador and ATTORNEY GENERAL. Personally, I think black America stands to benefit more from a top down opposition to racial profiling than either Obama checking off to-dos on this byzantine blackness list.

Here is a useful bit of information that we might reflect upon during the next four years: Barack Obama is the President, not the host of Soul Train.




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