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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.

Blaming The Writers

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jul 9 2009, 1:00 PM ET Comment

The dudes who penned the Transformers script are backing away from the minstrelbots:

Cole: I heard that the gold tooth was Michael Bay's idea, but do you have any response to those who found The Twins offensive?

Orci: Number one, we sympathize. Yes, the gold tooth was not in the script, that's true.

Kurtzman: It's really hard for us to sit here and try to justify it.I think that would be very foolish, and if someone wants to be offended by it, it's their right. We were very surprised when we saw it, too, and it's a choice that was made. If anything, it just shows you that we don't control every aspect of the movie.

Cole: Were you offended by them?

Kurtzman: I wasn't thrilled. I certainly wasn't thrilled.

Orci: Yeah, same reaction. I'm not easily offended, but when I saw it, I thought, 'Someone's gonna write about that.'"




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