I tried to explain some in comments on Friday what I mean by calling the city a "problem." I think E.L. Doctorow does a much better job of it below, and Ric Burns' New York (from which this clip is taken) is a tour de force in the city as a "problem." I'll say no more so as not to ruin it. Doctorow is my favorite novelists, and a literary hero of mine. He just kills it in this clip.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. 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.
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