Ta-Nehisi Coates Rules, The Thread

the rumor is that the editorial page editor took him out to dinner and was such a prick that tnc soured on the whole idea

hah - that might explain telling another reporter about saying no to the offer. does this whole observer piece read differently from inside nyc media world than it does outside it? (does anyone outside it pay attention?)

haha i doubt anyone outside that world is reading an observer profile about an atlantic writer!

fwiw i think it's fair to make your own conclusions about what a writer is 'abt' rather than going by what he says. race may not "define" him but it's obviously a recurring motif

he was not a great speller'

Oh and BTW

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/how-the-quiet-car-explains-the-world/273885/

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/why-accidental-racist-is-actually-just-racist/274826/

Paisley wants to know how he can express his Southern Pride. Here are some ways. He could hold a huge party on Martin Luther King's birthday, to celebrate a Southerner's contribution to the world of democracy. He could rock a T-shirt emblazoned with Faulkner's Light In August, and celebrate the South's immense contribution to American literature. He could preach about the contributions of unknown Southern soldiers like Andrew Jackson Smith. He could tell the world about the original Cassius Clay. He could insist that Tennessee raise a statue to Ida B. Wells.

Every one of these people are Southerners. And every one of them contributed to this great country. But to do that Paisley would have to be more interested in a challenging conversation and less interested in a comforting lecture.

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/05/the-ghetto-is-public-policy/275456/

If only Scalia would read some of the books on Coates linked reading list

Jesus, this writer!

The culture of our world, right now, is crafted by little boys who only recall being stood up on their first date, and nothing they got after. They don't remember the sand they kicked in other people's eyes, only their own injuries. Our art is cynical and bad-ass and made by people who will not be happy until you join them in the church of "everything is fucked up, so throw up your hands." This is art as anesthesia.

Our art is made in cities like New York by people who are running from other places. They feel themselves as misfits who were trapped in dead-end suburbs. They hated high school. Their parents did not understand. They are seeking a better world. And when they realize that the world is wholly a problem, that the whole problem is in them, they make television for other people who are also running, who take voyage in search of a perfect world, then rage at the price of the ticket.

I am not immune. But when I think of Baltimore, I think of Ma and Dad. I think of their new lives. I think of my sisters and brothers and their many mothers. I think of my youngest niece, like a daughter who I will never have. I think of nephews who are like sons to me. I think of high school friends who would have leaped in front of car for me.

I thought I would return to Baltimore. But I was out on the Yard. I was struck--then struck again by you. So it goes.

I winced at the NYC line but I've looked at his page the last couple days trying to figure out which passage from his Paris dispatches most impresses me.

really excellent times piece

loved it

"the culture of our world": *whose* world? whose *world*? Anyway: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/fashion/From-Joan-Didion-to-Andrew-Sullivan-some-writers-leave-behind-letters-when-they-leave-new-york-city.html?_r=0

see quiddities thread

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Books/Pix/pictures/2009/11/18/1258560568547/Writer-Didion-At-Hippie-H-001.jpg
© Ted Streshinsky/Corbis

"Not in New York."

Coates can be great, but think he's giving some aholes too much credit here, on the way to more-to-the point peering at his own struggles, which a lot of people share.

not that the aholes aren't relevant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/opinion/sunday/coates-in-defense-of-a-loaded-word.html

absolutely fantastic

totes

and perfectly timed for thanksgiving-relative time! u_u

^^^ yes

wow you guys are like a 100% sure youre going to have to discuss the n word at thanksgiving im depressed now

about 90 percent sure

am spending Thanksgiving at the relative at whose house we had a raucous, cheerful debate last June about his disappointment that he couldn't use the n-word.

fuck

team tnc http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/black-pathology-and-the-closing-of-the-progressive-mind/284523/

Good as far as it goes, but the limitation of the late 19th/early 20th Century progressive mindset re residue and social hygiene is a familiar one, and what about the point made by some other African-American commentators, re actual residue:internalized expectations of failure? Also, being "too black" for acceptance by some, "too light/white" by others? He might well deal with such internalization elsewhere, but since he brought up the residue here, seems to beg the question a bit.

a fairly familiar point or topic, I meant.

what is... culture?

A summary, sort of:

http://gawker.com/public-intellectual-deathmatch-ta-nehisi-coates-jona-1554487845

that article is embarrassing ("Lookit what these eggheads are doing!").

ugh it even ends with an 'oh snap' gif

And yet somehow the comments manage to outdo it

Filed to:SHADE

the dumbest motherfuckers in the world file copy for gawker media on the weekends. i don't know if they only pay the weekend warriors w/ hardee's coupons and hence this is the level of talent they attract or what but it's some embarrassing shit.

looking forward to the gawker summation of the Derrida/Searle debate.

balls, you are making me think i could write some shit for gawker, im gonna pitch some ideas brb

Good as far as it goes, but the limitation of the late 19th/early 20th Century progressive mindset re residue and social hygiene is a familiar one, and what about the point made by some other African-American commentators, re actual residue:internalized expectations of failure? Also, being "too black" for acceptance by some, "too light/white" by others? He might well deal with such internalization elsewhere, but since he brought up the residue here, seems to beg the question a bit.

― dow, Sunday, March 30, 2014 12:08 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

eh there's also a point that "internalized expectations" have to do with ppl who aren't black can get away with acting like they deserve things (and then getting those things) but if you look a different way and you try the same shit you get smacked the fuck down

Oppression might well produce a culture of failure. It might also produce a warrior spirit and a deep commitment to attaining the very things which had been so often withheld from you. There is no need for theorizing. The answers are knowable.So this use of "also" had me expecting he was going to talk about both kinds of effect. And "residue" can be residual elements of white oppression's values internalized, so not like he has to reject the word itself as symptom of arrested development progressive sanctimony. I think it's a useful word, a reminder of the way bad shit seeps in and sticks around for the quiet moments. I gotta keep up with his blog, though.

coates debate w/ chait has been pretty fascinating, though admittedly more to read coates' pieces, which are really exceptional. especially coates' most recent one. chait's just aren't that powerful.

and i'm not going to read that gawker piece. gawker's already on my list of 1,000,000,000,000 places to avoid on the internet

If only there were someone on this board who worked at or ran gawker and could elucidate things

Chait can't hide his "I really want Democrats to win" subtext. He's a smarter Chuck Todd.

this:

(Chait goes on, but it's all very substantial and dense and thoughtful and that's not really what we're here for, is it?)

speaks volumes, really (i.e. we don't want to be substantial, dense or thoughtful around these parts)

what if it meant something else tho makes u think

its kinda a shame w this debate that chait is so wrong and operating from such a position of weakness cause he can be often pretty lucid but i feel like he just walked right into coats wheelhouse w/out thinking things through too much, like obvs coats is better anyway

Maybe Chait will learn something from Coates latest response (on the 30th).

Oops, never mind, he did not

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/03/coates-disagrees-with-jonathan-chait-so-do-i.html

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/black-culture-and-progressivism/360362

Clare Sestanovitch discussion of the Chait and Coates debate and of others who weighed in on it