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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.

On Looking Like a Ghetto Crackhead

By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Jan 20 2012, 12:00 PM ET Comment



One other way Obama represents is simply by being all black and normal, and thus driving white racists even more batshit insane. Take for instance the following clip where a guest on Fox says:

"How long do you think Sean Hannity's show would last if four times in one sentence, he made a comment about, say, the President of the United States, and said that he looked like a skinny, ghetto crackhead?" Bozell wondered. "Which, by the way, you might want to say that Barack Obama does."

What starts out as halfway-fair critique degenerates into utter racism, at Obama's expense. That five percent of black America that's conservative, or left and have qualms about him see that and their decision is made for them.

I am aware that saying the first black president looks like "a skinny ghetto crackhead," might not strike some people as particularly racist. It's true that the president is, in fact, skinny. It's true that ghettos didn't originally refer to places where black people lived. It's also true that white people, do in fact, smoke crack. 

Likewise, poor white trash could refer to the garbage can somewhere in the Kentucky hills.It's not like we can read minds, or anything.


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