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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.

Ignorance Is Bliss

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Apr 23 2009, 3:00 PM ET Comment

The more I think about Peggy Noonan's statements on Sunday, the more horrified I get. Noonan is a graceful writer who was particularly hot during the campaign. And yet is there anyway to listen to her comments, and not hear them as a willful endorsement of kind of national blindness?

The job of journalists is to challenge the government and to challenge their readers and viewers. What sort of journalist tells his readers that some things must be mysterious? What sort of writer tells her readers, and viewers, essentially, to not ask too many questions? We have a fine era, when otherwise respected, intelligent, and well-read people step on a national stage and endorse national ignorance. What a mess.

In case you haven't seen them, Noonan's comments are below. George Will doesn't come off any better. I'm less surprised by that. In fact the whole panel is kind of depressing. They've been in the same city for too long.



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