Ta-Nehisi Coates
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Letter to Everyone Else
Ta-Nehisi Coates continues to storm the literary world over at Rolling Stone and New York Magazine, and if those accolades weren’t enough, Toni Morrison has decreed him to “fill the intellectual void that plagued me after James Baldwin died.”
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What You See
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s new book Between the World and Me is a letter addressed to his son that America needs to read. New York profiles the author, whose fearless writing about race continues to hold readers accountable to history: Coates’s writing…
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Never Really Alone
Blood and smoke and broken windows aren’t the only images out of Baltimore (though they sure do get good ratings).
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Baltimore: A Rumpus Roundup
On April 12th, four Baltimore bicycle police arrested 25-year-old Freddie Gray. Gray sustained injuries while in police custody. He asked for medical assistance repeatedly before slipping into a coma. A week later, he died.
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Not So Literal
These days there are so many screens showing superheroes one can almost forget that they came from comics. Ta-Nehisi Coates talks to Vulture about storytelling, representation, and the places where movies fall short: We’re talking about something that’s so surreal…
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The Case for Reparations
The latest issue of The Atlantic Monthly just went live, and the feature story by Ta-Nehisi Coates is a monster. It’s about making the moral case for reparations, but it expands the conversation surrounding this topic in two ways. The…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Brilliant Take on the Zimmerman Verdict
Not to overload anyone on political coverage, but Ta-Nehisi Coates’s reaction to the George Zimmerman trial is an absolute must-read. In it, he looks at the actual legal text involved in the case and points out that what’s so deeply frightening…
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A Very Non-Accidental Response to Brad Paisley
You may have noticed one or two jokes about Brad Paisley and LL Cool J’s collaboration “Accidental Racist,” partially because of every aspect of the song, but mainly because of every aspect of the song. But Ta-Nehisi Coates puts humor…
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Why the Civil War Is Still Worth Talking About
Byliner’s list of spectacular nonfiction articles of 2012 highlights two complementary essays from the Atlantic‘s Civil War issue. First, Yoni Appelbaum uses a hyperrealistic “cyclotron” painting of the Battle of Gettysburg as a pin to puncture the national narrative that the…
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“A Humiliated Boy’s Idea of Manhood”
What do Raymond Chandler’s protagonists have in common with hip-hop artists? At The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates investigates: “I’ve had the privilege of reading The Big Sleep, between bouts of dabbling with the new Kendrick Lamar. Both works are technically impressive. And both…
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Thin Opposition
“…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…
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On Race and Empathy
In the last few days there have been many thoughtful take-downs of the already infamous Forbes “If I were a poor black kid” column. Don’t miss Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Atlantic response discussing “a muscular empathy” and confronting our own mediocrity. “If…