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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.

The War Against Spousal Aggression

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jul 16 2009, 10:00 AM ET Comment

Black Soldiers.jpg


A complaint from Kenyatta: "There are soldiers everywhere! In the bathroom! On the kitchen table! On the couch! What is going on!"

To clarify, I have a copy of North And South magazine in the bathroom, A Grand Army Of Black Men is on the kitchen table, and a Cannons: An Introduction To Civil War Artillery is on the couch.

It's funny. I'm still the kid, I was in school. I was a terrible student, and yet I had a curiosity that would border on obsession. I failed eleventh grade English, because my teacher would give me a zero every time I forgot to bring my copy of the Odyssey to class. What did I need with that book? I had read the whole thing the first week of school, as soon as I saw it on the syllabus.

We don't change, do we?

On another note, a colleague has informed me that he has a second home near Sharpsburg. I have already told him, that he should have kept that to himself. I'm going to camp out on his porch. Kenyatta insists that she isn't coming with me. She'll learn...


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