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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.

Especially The Blacks And The Jews...

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jun 9 2009, 10:00 AM ET Comment

One last thought on this "Jews Gone Wild tape." This sentiment from Jeff...

Max Blumenthal goes to downtown Jerusalem and prompts drunk American Jewish kids to say horrible things about Obama. On the one hand, Blumenthal is an exploiter who doesn't seem to like Israel very much; on the other hand, the things these pathetic kids say are repulsive and the yeshivas that sent them to Israel are due for a serious soul-search this Yom Kippur. Their children are an embarrassment to Judaism.
...has an oddly familiar ring to it. It's like that moment when you hear about a horrible crime, and they're about to flash the perp's flick across the screen and you think, "Don'tbeblackDon'tbeblackDon'tbeblackPLEASE!Don'tbeblack!!"

That's not quite right. I think it's more like finding out the D.C. sniper was a brother. Blacks aren't supposed to be serial killers, in much the way Jews aren't supposed to be racist. At any rate, the whole ritual got me to thinking about this riff by Steve Harvey on Rae Carruth. "I know good and well this motherfucker ain't in this trunk..."




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