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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.

OK, This Is Just Creepy

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
May 6 2009, 11:00 AM ET Comment

I don't get with the Mormon-hating. Didn't get with it when Romney was running. I won't get with it now. But dig this:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints confirmed Tuesday afternoon that someone improperly, posthumously baptized the late mother of President Obama into the Mormon faith.


Last June 4 -- the day after then-Sen. Obama secured enough delegates to win the Democratic presidential nominee -- someone had the president's mother Stanley Ann Dunham, who died in 1995 of cancer, baptized.

On June 11, she received the endowment.

I think the arrogance of "baptizing" someone posthumously says a lot. I think the arrogance of baptizing someone who's child, only 30 years ago, would have been scorned in your church says even more.




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