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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.

When the Apology Makes It Worse

National May 30 2012, 7:07 AM ET
Heading off to do his 30-day bid, Dharun Ravi "apologizes"

"I accept responsibility for and regret my thoughtless, insensitive, immature, stupid and childish choices that I made on Sept. 19, 2010, and Sept. 21, 2010," Mr. Ravi said. "My behavior and actions, which at no time were motivated by hate, bigotry, prejudice or desire to hurt, humiliate or embarrass anyone, were nonetheless the wrong choices and decisions. I apologize to everyone affected by those choices."
Probably the most grating portion here is the idea that Ravi was not trying to "humiliate or embarrass anyone." The facts of the case really say otherwise. But as I've said before you the justice system isn't really set up to punish people simply for not being honorable. There's obviously a legal argument against admitting any fault. 

But what strikes me about these kinds of apology (George Zimmerman's as well) is this desire to appear contrite, without taking on any of the actual weight of genuine contrition. Qualities like "immaturity," "stupidity," "childishness," and "insensitivity" can be chalked up to ignorance or biology. Whereas "hate" and "bigotry" have been moved into the realm of indelible moral stains carried only by those who sleep under bridges and eat people.

I have long thought of "racism without racists" as merely the product of the color-line. But it's also the result of the American--and perhaps even the human--inability to admit fault. No one wants to be wrong. It is a great failing, not simply of morality and honor, but of imagination. Being wrong is painful. It would be painful for Ravi to tell the world he actually was trying to humiliate a fellow human for his own ends. It would be painful to admit that he actually has tried to spy on people in the past. But people who can't admit to who they are, have little chance of ever becoming anything more.

There's been talk in comments on what some community service, and exposure to different worlds might do for Ravi. I would not count on it. Until you can say "I was wrong" without pausing to defend yourself, there really isn't much hope.

The Lost Battalion

Personal May 29 2012, 1:16 PM ET
It's yours...

Bart Scott Doesn't Want His Kids Playing Football

Entertainment May 29 2012, 11:00 AM ET
The chorus swells a bit:

"I don't want my son to play football," Scott said. "I play football so he won't have to. With what is going on, I don't know if it's really worth it. . . . I don't want to have to deal with him getting a concussion and what it would be like later in life." 

Keeping kids inside a protective bubble has plenty of risks, too -- there are a lot more kids struggling with health problems related to obesity than there are kids struggling with health problems related to football -- but Scott said his 7-year-old son will get his exercise through non-contact sports. 

"He can play baseball," Scott said. "I really don't want him boxing, either, even though he wants to box. I won't let him box. It's not worth it. The most important thing for me is him being around and me being able to spend a long time with him and I'm sure, at the end of the day, all the things I'm able to buy him from playing football, he'd much rather have me."

I keep seeing people say that if you keep your kids from playing football you're keeping them "inside a protective bubble." I don't really understand that. Parenting is, by its very nature, a protective bubble. The question is what the exact nature of that bubble will be. Within reason, I think that's a decision that parents, themselves, must make. I also don't get this idea that obesity is somehow the opposite of playing football. The "football or nothing" attitude has really only steeled me in the idea that it's right to leave. 

On that note. I did a podcast with the PostBourgie crew (now over at HuffPo) in which we tackled this very question. The great Gene Demby hosted, fellow Cowboys fan Dion Nicole joined in, as did ex-TCU running back Joel Bell. For me the best part of the conversation wasn't even the "To watch or not" portion, but when Joel talks about being in the TCU backfield when on LaDainian Tomlinson arrived. Fascinating stuff.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's Small World

Entertainment May 29 2012, 10:00 AM ET



Having long railed against The Great Gatsby in 3D, I was obviously really interested in the trailer. It actually looks smashing. I am not a nostalgic, so I kind of love the surrealist, almost sci-fi take on New York in the roaring '20s.

But as impressed as I was by the look of the thing, I'm pretty sure I'll be skipping it. Gatsby, to me, will always be the ultimate study in the oxymoronic—a small book about a really big idea. That contrast—brevity and The Great American Novel, Fitzgerald's small world and the grand idea of American social-climbing—is what I come back to in the book. That, and of course, the characters.

Gatsby is a book that has come to mean something to people (or perhaps simply to Hollywood directors) that sometimes feels disconnected from the book itself. Fitzgerald's great trick was to write about two people who wanted each other, but not write a love story. Of course I root for Daisy to leave Tom every time. But my rooting is wrong, and by the end of the book, Fitzgerald has really shown you why. Daisy is the one that got away—except you have no idea what that means. That "one" isn't some better future. She is a person—a indelibly flawed American. Like you.

Gatsby is something I haven't seen recently in American film—a kind of anti-melodrama, an anti-love story. Perhaps it's my present biases, but I'd have loved to see the French take this one on.

Dorothy Parker in the Twitter Age

Entertainment May 29 2012, 9:00 AM ET
Looking through The Paris Review's massive archive of interviews, I found this exchange:

PARKER 

 All those writers who write about their childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me. 

 INTERVIEWER 

 What, then, would you say is the source of most of your work? 

 PARKER 

 Need of money, dear.

Parker, of course, enjoys a sacred place in my heart for her hatred of racism and segregation. (She left her entire estate to Martin Luther King, whom she'd never met.) But she was famous for her whit, a fact which the The Review's interview makes clear she came to regard with disdain. You can see how it can reduce a writer and their talents. And yet even through reading this interview, I thought Dorothy Parker would have killed on twitter:

INTERVIEWER 

Do you think economic security an advantage to the writer? 

PARKER 

Yes. Being in a garret doesn't do you any good unless you're some sort of a Keats. The people who lived and wrote well in the twenties were comfortable and easy living. They were able to find stories and novels, and good ones, in conflicts that came out of two million dollars a year, not a garret. As for me, I'd like to have money. And I'd like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that's too adorable, I'd rather have money. I hate almost all rich people, but I think I'd be darling at it. At the moment, however, I like to think of Maurice Baring's remark: "If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom he gives it." I realize that's not much help when the wolf comes scratching at the door, but it's a comfort.

Read the whole thing. There's some great stuff in there about the actual craft of writing, and Parker's own assessment of her work.

50 Cent Endorses Marriage Equality; Wonders Why There's No 'White History Month'

National May 25 2012, 9:59 AM ET
The wave of rappers endorsing marriage equality has ranged from actual anti-homophobia to a more libertarian "meh." Now we have 50 Cent also endorsing marriage equality but wary of gays getting getting "special" rights:

"I think everyone should be happy. I think a fool is going to go against same sex marriage at this point. The President...look how long it took him to say he was for same sex marriages. You understand? I'm up for it. If everyone else is for it, then hey, to each his own. I don't have personal feelings towards it because I'm not involved in that lifestyle. I want people to be happy. It makes for everything to be better..."

"So in process, we need organizations for straight men. We do. We need organizations for straight men in the case you've been on the elevator and somebody decides they want to grab your little buns. Times are changing. Those organizations are set up for at one point they were being attacked for those choices. Now its completely different. Obviously [homosexuality] is more socially accepted."

This is what I meant about the difference between being fine with marriage equality, and still being bigoted against gays. As sure as there were arguments against slavery that had nothing to do with an affinity for black people, there are arguments for marriage equality that still allow for bigotry against gays and lesbians.

But this is what progress always looks like. Progress is not the practice of those in the business of sweeping success. Progress overawes--but its work is slow and grim. Progress waits on people to die, and more enlightened people to take their place. Progress works  even as the unenlightened abound, but find their ranks thinned and their positions exposed. 

Specifically, democratic progress is not revolution and can never be the gospel of people who measures success by complete victories achieved in singular life-times. Instead it is reserved for those  who are unrelenting in struggle, patient beyond their mortal coil, and willing to wage wars across generations.

If you will allow me to express this by analogy, I would say it like this: Moving from the "marrying your daughters" phase of the struggle to the "how come there's no white history month?" portion is exactly how progress works. 

Black Voters Evolving On Marriage Equality

Politics May 24 2012, 1:31 PM ET
Via Dave Weigel, some welcome news out of Maryland:

57% of Maryland voters say they're likely to vote for the new marriage law this fall, compared to only 37% who are opposed. That 20 point margin of passage represents a 12 point shift from an identical PPP survey in early March, which found it ahead by a closer 52/44 margin. 

The movement over the last two months can be explained almost entirely by a major shift in opinion about same-sex marriage among black voters. Previously 56% said they would vote against the new law with only 39% planning to uphold it. Those numbers have now almost completely flipped, with 55% of African Americans planning to vote for the law and only 36% now opposed. 

The big shift in attitudes toward same-sex marriage among black voters in Maryland is reflective of what's happening nationally right now. A new ABC/Washington Post poll finds 59% of African Americans across the country supportive of same-sex marriage. A PPP poll in the critical swing state of Pennsylvania last weekend found a shift of 19 points in favor of same-sex marriage among black voters.

As it currently stands, Maryland will be the first state to uphold marriage equality by referendum. I don't actually believe the right to create family among two consenting adults should be subject to the whims of a majority--black or not. 

With that said, if these numbers hold, will be a major statement. It would not simply mean that same-sex marriage held by a majority vote, but that it did so in one of the blackest states in the country. I don't think that says anything distinctive about African-Americans, except that in the climate, it seems exceptional to point out that black people are, in fact, not aliens permanently in the grip of pathology, but Americans.

I was skeptical that Obama would actually influence black opinions. I'm not sure he has. But I can't rule it out. It's clear that the trend was toward support. Maybe Obama gave it the final push. On a related note, preachers who thought they were going to use this to test, for better or ill, the most popular man in black America, should reconsider. As Weigel reports, that's already in happening:

[Reverend Emmett C]. Burns enjoyed the first spasms of repeal campaign coverage. He went on CNN and promised not to vote for Obama -- he was just so angry about the gay marriage "evolution." Less than a week later, he told National Review that he'd evolved. He'd back Obama anyway. It's not that easy to stake a position against the president and try to hold on to the black vote.

Smart man. No need to get timberland'd up. 

EDIT: Majeff cleans up one of my notions on Maryland being "first," below:

There are two other states where similar things could take place. Washington will likely be voting on whether to uphold that state's legislation granting marriage equality, and voters in Maine look like they'll be enacting marriage equality.

White Resentment, Obama, and Appalachia

Politics May 23 2012, 10:00 AM ET
Steve Kornacki tries to do the math on Obama's unpopularity throughout Appalachia:

A majority of Kentucky's 120 counties voted against Obama in the state's Democratic presidential primary, opting instead for "uncommitted." Big margins in Louisville and Lexington saved the president from the supreme embarrassment of actually losing the state, not that his overall 57.9 to 42.1 percent victory is anything to write home about...

Chalking this up only to race may be an oversimplification, although there was exit poll data in 2008 that indicated it was an explicit factor for a sizable chunk of voters. Perhaps Obama's race is one of several markers (along with his name, his background, and the never-ending Muslim rumors, his status as the "liberal" candidate in 2008) that low-income white rural voters use to associate him with a national Democratic Party that they believe has been overrun by affluent liberals, feminists, minorities, secularists and gays - people and groups whose interests are being serviced at the expense of their own.

I think that "Chalking this up only to race" is a strawman, and its one that I often see writers invoke when talking about white resentment and Obama. Here's another example from Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake:

But although no one doubts that race may be a factor, exit polling suggests that the opposition to Obama goes beyond it. And seasoned political observers who have studied the politics of these areas say race may be less of a problem for Obama than the broader cultural disconnect that many of these voters feel with the Democratic Party. 

"Race is definitely a factor for some Texans but not the majority," said former congressman Charles W. Stenholm (D-Tex.). "The most significant factor is the perception/reality that the Obama administration has leaned toward the ultra-left viewpoint on almost all issues."

The presumption here is that race can somehow be bracketed off from the perception that Obama is "ultra-left."  Thus unlike other shameful acts of racism, opposition to Obama race as a possible "factor" but goes "beyond it." Or in Kornacki's formulation Obama, presumably unlike past victims, is facing a complicated opposition which can't be reduced to raw hatred of blacks.

The problem with these formulations is that they are utterly ahistorical. There is no history of racism in this country that chalked "up only to race." You can't really talk about stereotypes of, say, black laziness unless you understand stereotypes of the poor stretching back to 17th century Great Britain (Edmund Morgan again.) You can't really talk about the Southern slave society without grappling with the relationship between the demand for arable land and the demand for labor. You can't understand the racial pogroms at the turn of the century without understanding the increasing mobility of American women. (Philip Dray At The Hands Of Persons Unknown.)

And this works the other way too. If you're trying to understand the nature of American patriotism without thinking about anti-black racism, you will miss a lot. If you're trying to understand the New Deal, without thinking about Southern segregationist senators you will miss a lot. If you're trying to understand the very nature of American democracy itself, and not grappling with black, you will miss almost all of it. 

In sum, there is very little about racism that can be chalked "only up to race." Chalking up slavery, itself, only to race is a deeply distorting oversimplification. The profiling that young black males endure can't chalked up "only to race" either. It's also their youth and their gender. Complicating racism with other factors doesn't make it any better. It just makes it racism. Again. 

I don't mean to come down on Kornacki or Cillizza. But I think this sort of writing about race--and really about American politics--as though history doesn't exist is a problem. Specifically, journalists are fond of saying "racism is only one factor" without realizing that any racism is unacceptable. It is wrong to believe Barack Obama shouldn't be president because he's black. That you have other reasons along with those--even ones that rank higher--doesn't make it excusable. Likely those other reasons are themselves tied to Obama being black.

The Lost Battalion

Personal May 22 2012, 12:20 PM ET
Just want to apologize to everyone for the scant posting over the past few months. I'm finishing out a draft. (Finally.) This thing has been feasting on my soul.

It's yours.

Dharun Ravi and 30 Days

National May 22 2012, 10:00 AM ET
Emily Bazelon thinks it's the right sentence:

Judge Berman's sentencing decision may well disappoint M.B., as well as the Clementi family. They didn't ask for a particular sentence, saying they trusted the judge to get it right. Did he? I think the answer is yes, if you pay attention to the judge's reasoning. He faulted Ravi's lack of remorse and humility, saying, "I haven't heard you apologize once." The judge also said, "You can't expunge the misconduct and the pain you have caused." 

But Judge Berman rightly found that Ravi is probably not at risk to commit another similar offense. He took into account Ravi's young age--18 at the time of the spying--and his previously clean record. And Judge Berman also was right, I think, to say that while what Ravi did was wrong, he didn't contemplate the harm his misconduct would cause. And Judge Berman correctly pointed out that in the New Jersey cases in which a conviction for a bias crime has led to a long prison sentence, the bias was related to a crime of violence. A victim was beaten with a metal rod, for example. There was no violence at issue here, however unsavory the webcam spying was, and it's an important distinction that's worth preserving. Though I found myself more torn about the light sentence Ravi received today than I expected, I agree with the gay rights activists who have questioned what purpose a harsh prison sentence for Ravi would serve.
I don't think it would have served much. I really don't want to write that. There's a kind of weak nebbish bullying that you see from Ravi in this New Yorker piece that just infuriates. There's a natural urge to want to punish someone like that, or bring them to justice. But I think Ian Parker, following up his New Yorker piece has it right when he looks at the unmet desire to see Ravi express some contrition:

...this unmet desire is a reminder of something that the Ravi case seemed almost designed to illustrate: criminal law is not always the perfect means for reaching political or social goals.
Jail is pretty awful. A ten year bid would have almost certainly subjected to the constant threat of violence. I can't really see what good that would do. The criminal justice system can't really make people "good." It can't exact vengeance upon slime-balls. And it can't make Ravi and his supporters introspective at all. One of the problems of suicide it's that it leaves the living groping for answers. I don't a lengthy jail bid would have supplied any.

Morning Coffee

Entertainment May 22 2012, 9:00 AM ET
I didn't sleep that well last night and woke up feeling rather fickle. Guess that's means it's time for to change my opinion on The Greatest Hip-Hop Song In History. Yesterday we went with barbarian angst and proto-feminism. Today we'll go with the distinctive irony of American imperialism and  sucker MCs.

The extended metaphor has a deep tradition in hip-hop. There's of course Common's "I Used To Love Her," as someone pointed out yesterday Nas' "I Gave You Power," and Mobb Deep's "Drink Away The Pain." I'm lukewarm to the first (too earnest) a little more enthralled by the second (hard not to love, "I see niggas bleedin runnin from me in fear\stunningly tears fall down the eyes of these so-called tough guys, for years.") and much more in love with the latter. The awkwardly awesome cameo from Q-Tip comes like a left-hook (the aim of Oswald) from the days before there was something called "backpack rap."

But my favorite invocation of the extended metaphor is easily Company Flow's "Patriotism." You really could go crazy on thickness of these lyrics:

You up against -- Jesus Freaks, formin corporations  with Young Republicans 
Indelible NATO force hidden agenda, puppet governments 
I'm lovin it. Keep the people guessin who I'm runnin with 
Control the population and hide behind sacred covenants

My usual beef with these sorts of rhymes is they actually don't go deep enough, and are little too satisfied with the device, so satisfied in fact, that the actual lyrics are bent to serve the extension of the metaphor. But El-P is never hamstrung by the technique. Many of his best lines feel like they could have fit in any other battle-rap or freestyle. ("Your bitchy little policy dogs don't even phase my basic policy to bomb smarter\My Ronald Reagans crush Carter.) The metaphor saves him--not the other way around. 

Chuck D pioneered the art of merging the battle rap and political critique. In Chuck's construction he battled the FBI the way other rappers battled MCs. It was slick statement--Chuck was so beyond the competition that he'd gone beyond meta-battles to actual ones. El-P took that concept and ran with it, inverting it so as to say that he is as ruthless on the mic, as the American state is on the world-stage:

You just stepped into the spectrum of paranoid word rainbows 
Thinkin you sick with a sihlouette, burn transit cop out his plain clothes 
I'm America. This is where the pain grows like poppies 
In a Field of Dreams I paid for, I'll burn it down if operated sloppily. Copy?

The hottest shit on Soundbombing. 

All snark aside, one of the greatest lyrical performances I've ever heard. My only regret is present it to you in this form takes something away. It should be heard sandwiched between the Beatjunkies scratching this and "1999." I keep wanting to hear Talib say "Just relax, slow down..."


The Lost Battalion

Personal May 21 2012, 12:00 PM ET
It's yours...

'Guild Wars 2' and the End of Healing

Entertainment May 21 2012, 11:00 AM ET
Gamasutra has a good piece on the upcoming Guild Wars and the need to really make some progress in the mechanics of massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMOs):

"We're finally seeing a point where companies realize that they're not going to create the next great MMO by just copying what's come before," said Christopher Lye, global brand director at ArenaNet, who believes the definition of an MMO has come to mean games that follow a similar quest and combat structure to World of Warcraft. 

"'MMO' is a platform and set of technologies, not a game design model - and we've barely scratched the surface of what's possible ... Honestly, I think the problem is that there's been a lack of change in MMO design and that Guild Wars 2 is a reaction to that."

This part is music to my elvish ears:

ArenaNet is also breaking what Lye called the "holy trinity" of MMO combat -- tank, healer and DPS -- and omitting a dedicated healing class all together, giving some healing abilities to each profession. The designers hope this will "free players up from that dependency, so you see a lot more creativity in party make-up and tactics," said Lye.

I haven't played Star Wars: The Old Republic in months. There are probably many reasons for this, some of them having nothing to do with the game. But I have to say that I never adjusted to the notion of someone healing me by shooting at me. It felt like a blatant case of game mechanics overriding narrative. I found the game really immersive--but that need to be healed by someone shooting me always broke the spell.

Hetero Guilt and Narcissistic Groping

Entertainment May 21 2012, 10:00 AM ET

I don't think this Beenie Man's apology, which you can see above, is much of one. I'm in sympathy with the point about being young--especially for artists. A lot of us come from a place where being out is hazardous to your health. Then you go out into a world where gays are integrated into everyday life and you feel a little ignorant. Of course Beenie didn't say that. I don't even think he actually apologized. But I do think, taken with T.I.'s statement last week, you are actually seeing something new here--shame. People are becoming ashamed of being labeled homophobic.

When you think about bigotry there's a point where folks will just out and out express the most hateful thoughts--think Ben Tillman advocating lynching from the Senate floor. They usually do this because they have a crowd behind them. Sometimes they deeply believe what they're saying, and other times are simply looking for someone weaker to smack down.

So it's fine to use gay slurs, to urge violence against gays as long as there's a crowd that finds this either acceptable, or not particularly lamentable. The black past is filled with incidents of violence perpetrated by whites--not as racial terrorism--but simply as hedonistic malevolence.

It's Friday night and you've been drinking. You're looking for some amusement. You don't really have much in the way of political thoughts. But there are certain groups which the crowd views as outside of society. When they are victimized, the crowd may not always cheer you on, but you can count on them looking the other way.

More »

Morning Coffee

Entertainment May 21 2012, 9:19 AM ET




"Show You How To Do This Song" is the greatest hip-hop song ever. I know that last week proclaimed "Daytona 500" the greatest hip-hop song in all of known hip-hop history. But my status here as a public intellectual allows me to change my mind, and never bother to explain why. (It was in my contract.)

Moreover, key to my role as a prominent black intellectual is the conveyance of intellectual hipness. The accepted means of doing so usually involves crafting a jive hermeneutic melding Kierkegaard and Jay-Z. But I have never read Kierkegaard, and I just learned what word hermeneutic meant last week. I guess I'll just have to be fickle then.

Snark-aside, "Show You How To Do This Son" is--indeed--a great song. Probably my second favorite Jigga joint ("Dead Presidents Pt. 2" holds the top slot.) What you have here is Jay's classic dark sense of humor, channeling the ethos of drug-dealers and stick-up kids. I'm often shocked that as I've moved into the realm of respectability that this sort of hip-hop maintains a hold on me. But at least once a week I wake up and think:

Get a gun, a mask, an escape route
Some duct-tape'll make em take you to the house.

What "gangsta" rap always channeled was that outsider in all of us. And not the noble outsider, the barbarian, the viking, the savage. For me it was that sense that, "I am not a good person, and I like it." Of course I work hard at being moral, but I'm fairly sure that much of what I have is rooted in lizard-brain desire.

More »

The Lost Battalion

Personal May 18 2012, 12:37 PM ET
It's yours...

T.I. on Marriage Equality

National May 18 2012, 10:00 AM ET
Following Jay-Z's thoughts, the King offers his own:

I don't care. I don't see what the big deal is, why some people are so against it. Why would you be so against it if it doesn't affect you or your lifestyle? I'm not in that world and it doesn't affect me if they did or they didn't... I don't care enough one way or another. If something doesn't affect you, you should not take a strong position against it.
The other day someone mentioned that opposition to marriage equality, while widespread, was thin. In other words, if you asked posed same-sex marriage to someone, initially, they'd oppose it. But it isn't the sort of issue that most people are really going to wage war, unless you truly believe 1.) Gay marriage is an offense to God. 2.) That government should follow that dictate.

There's an initial reaction to something many of us had never considered as possible. But the more of it you see, the more possible it becomes to imagine. 

Finally, prejudice is a kind of cartel that works best when there is no real dissent. Once one person breaks away, others who may have had doubts find it easy to speak up. Moreover, those who never really had objection--but were just kinda going along--also fall away. It's not like everyone in Mississippi thought Emmitt Till got what he had coming.

I think the marriage equality folks concerned about gay marriage in black communities, should really recruit some rappers. They've already done it with black athletes. But I bet they could get some rappers on board too.

Morning Coffee

Entertainment May 18 2012, 8:45 AM ET
"Daytona 500" is the greatest hip-hop song ever--not merely my favorite, but "the greatest."

This is true because I have declared it as such. One of the benefits of of my status as a black intellectual is the right to cocoon myself in an elite bastion, and make broad declarations about urban culture, at a safe distance from those best equipped to refute said declarations.

Some black intellectuals would use their power to assure you that black people like being poor. I shall use it to declare that hip-hop begins in 1988 ends in 1998, and no intelligent person could possibly think differently. Also, the West Coast never happened. (OK, I'll give you Ice Cube.) There is no such thing as the South. Outkast were from Philly.

At any rate, I defy you to find a hip-hop song greater than "Daytona 500." What constituites greater? Whatever suits my whim. I'm a black intellectual. I have pronounced it from the offices of The Atlantic, therefore it must be true.

MORE: Snark aside, I need to make clear that TROY is the greatest hip-hop song ever. Again, no intelligent person can dispute.


Rappers Want to Be Actors

Personal May 17 2012, 5:12 PM ET
Neil Drumming writes about casting the incredible Jean Grae in his movie, and the everflowing conflict of casting MCs as thespians:

All that said, when I gave a draft of the script to Jean last year for her opinion, I secretly hoped that she would want to sign on. Partly, that was because of her music. Her lyrics demonstrated the same unabashed commitment to storytelling, language, and occasionally brutal, emotional honesty that I was striving for in this screenplay. (If you're not familiar with Jean's music, start at her website and work your way slowly back into a coma.) 

Also, I knew that Jean understood character. Like all rappers, there is something of a persona to Jean Grae--in case you were wondering, no, her parents did not actually name her after a Marvel superhero. But Jean is not stuck in the box she built for herself.

Neil links to the classic Taco Day. I was actually a little late to Jean. I first heard her rhyme on Mister Lif's apocalyptic "Post Mortem." The cut, in and of itself, is fairly incredible and worthy of its own post. But Jean's humor in the midst of everything going about as bad as you can imagine immediately stood out for me. There's a lot of great philosophy from Lif (like really profound shit) some searing memories from El-P, but Jean is just straight hedonism, and dark humor:

Death - faced with it - run to it - not from it 
Swallow all the pills in the medicine cabinet 
Chase it with a bottle of 151, hug mommy 
Head outside, smash windows in, trash my hotel lobby 
Break the grip off the time at last Find a kid to hem up, 
Wish I did more sinning Get a strap on run up in some women 
Lay in the middle of a highway wait for pain to hit me 
Steal a camera with people looting, screaming "come and get me"

I mean, at least she hugged her momma. Seriously, I fell in love with this. Her style is, perhaps, one of the foulest...


Ricky Williams on Football and Concussions

Entertainment May 17 2012, 4:08 PM ET
There's a lot to chew on regarding the interview below with Ricky Williams and Dan Le Batard. I generally find Williams to be utterly fascinating, and an idiosyncratic thinker. I think he's pretty wrong about the science behind CTE, and moreover, about how science works, in general. That we now know that many aspects of science from a century ago were wrong, is a feature of science, not a bug. Science is a method, not an ultimate answer.

But beyond that, I think Williams gives some insight into a how a football player at his level almost has to think. There's an element of "not wanting to know" at work in this interview (I think he actually says that at one point.) that verges on denial. And yet I think what Williams says in the beginning--that it really is about the player--has some truth to it.

Anyway, just thoughts. Check out the video.

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May 30, 2012

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Ta-Nehisi Coates
from the Magazine

Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an Atlantic senior editor.

Fade to White

A filmmaker maps Austin’s shifting ethnic landscape.

The Legacy of Malcolm X

Why his vision lives on in Barack Obama