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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.

Jill Scott From Another Angle

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Apr 5 2010, 3:00 PM ET Comment

This popped into my inbox last week. It's an interesting reflection on Scott's comments, but with this attached:

Traditionally, as Jewish and gentile marriages began to rise in the United States in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the majority of Jews marrying out were men. Conventional publications praised Jewish women as keepers of the home and faith, but pop culture demonized them as unrelenting Jewish mothers and materialistic Jewish American Princesses (JAPs) who no Jewish man would want to marry in place of the whore/madonna shiksas that represented the American dream.

I don't know enough to assess this claim, which is why I'm posting it here. Again, I'm certain some of you will know more about this, and will be able to shed some light. Part of the problem with discussing black folks is the lack of a reliable analogue. White ethnics, who weren't always white, work up to a point. As do other nonwhite Americans. 

But systemic elements and aims of white supremacy are so unique and particular to black people, that it's very hard to make consistently reliable comparisons. African-Americans are one of the few ethnic groups in history--and the only major one in this country--who were essentially birthed by a slave society, and then subjected to generational measures meant to perpetuate the benefits of that society for non-blacks. Thus when you talk about the out-marriage rates of black men as compared to black women, it gets really difficult to see whether you're actually discussing something particular to black people, or black men, or whether you're talking about something American.



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