Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Baltimore Riots An Understandable Show of ‘Disrespect For…Hollow Law and Failed Order'
By Tom Johnson | April 28, 2015 | 1:08 PM EDT

In a Monday-night blog post, the writer for The Atlantic argued that calls for non-violence in response to the rioting in Baltimore are essentially “a ruse” and “a con,” given the city’s recent history of police brutality.

“When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out,” wrote Coates, “it exposes itself as a ruse. When nonviolence is preached by the representatives of the state, while the state doles out heaps of violence to its citizens, it reveals itself to be a con. And none of this can mean that rioting or violence is ‘correct’ or ‘wise,’ any more than a forest fire can be ‘correct’ or ‘wise.’ Wisdom isn't the point tonight. Disrespect is. In this case, disrespect for the hollow law and failed order that so regularly disrespects the community.”

WashPost Celebrates Leftist Author of 'Provocative Argument for Reparations to Black Americans'
By Tim Graham | June 19, 2014 | 11:17 PM EDT

The Washington Post might lament the rise of extremism in politics, of bitterness and incivility, that our politics are “broken.” If they really meant that, then why promote Ta-Nehisi Coates?

There he is, on the front of Thursday’s Style section, being honored for a huge article in The Atlantic magazine demanding black Americans get reparations from white Americans for ancient sins that happened long before today’s Americans of all colors were born. He’s bitter, he’s extreme, and he has a racial animus. And the Post loves him for it.

Comedy Gold: Senior Editor at The Atlantic Calls Melissa Harris-Perry 'America's Foremost Public Intellectual'
By Tom Blumer | January 8, 2014 | 12:35 AM EST

I kept looking for any sign that Ta-Nehisi Coates, described as "a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues," was kidding in his Monday afternoon column about Melissa Harris-Perry when he called her "The Smartest Nerd in the Room." He wasn't.

When last seen here at NewsBusters, Coates was pretending that the wealth gap between blacks and whites has consistently widened during the past 20 years, when the reality is that almost all of the widening has occurred during the past five years for which data is available. That delusion is nothing compared to his assessment of Harris-Perry, excerpted after the jump (bold is mine):

NYT Op-ed Writer Asserts That White-Black Wealth Gap Has Increased in Past Two Decades (Nope, Just the Past 5 Available Years)
By Tom Blumer | March 11, 2013 | 1:57 PM EDT

In a New York Times op-ed which has been receiving deserved criticism from other quarters concerning other matters (e.g., here and here), Ta-Nehisi Coates ("The Good, Racist People") repeated one of those establishment press-induced "everybody knows" mantras which doesn't stand up to scrutiny after considering the available evidence: "New York is a city, like most in America, that bears the scars of redlining, blockbusting and urban renewal. The ghost of those policies haunts us in a wealth gap between blacks and whites that has actually gotten worse over the past 20 years." In Coates's fevered mind, it's largely due to racism.

In national context, the white-black wealth gap in the two decades since 1993 is not yet known, but in 2005, the 15th of the past 20 years for which information is available (1991-2010), it stayed the same. The multiple only went up significantly when the housing bubble burst and the recession took hold.