This is painful to watch

In what world must a black gay man debate civil rights a man who believes blacks should be thankful they were slaves, and once advised Nixon to link an opponent to "New York Jewish money?"

Capehart went for his, did his best, and somehow managed to not catch a case. But my heart broke watching this. I am feeling like Carolyn Forche in "Return." "It is not your right to feel powerless," she says in that piece. "Better people than you were powerless."

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a former national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is the author of The Beautiful Struggle, We Were Eight Years in Power, The Water Dancer, and Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award for nonfiction.