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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.

It's Like They're Proud Of Being Ignorant

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Feb 8 2010, 9:00 AM ET Comment

An almost vice-president, likely presidential candidate, in the friendliest of friendly interviews--writes the answers on her hand. This is, among other things, an attack ad waiting to happen. But more than that it really is what happens when you turn conservatism into nothing more than the white populist id.

Maybe it always was that. I don't know. What you have here is a party being eaten alive by the hate that they stoked for decades, dumbasses who think the essence of "Real America" is stupidity and ignorance, who'd sooner have a president who packs a cheat-sheet to a tea party, than a Indonesian/socialist/nigger/Muslim. Soon we'll know if they're right.



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