Ta-Nehisi Coates and the boundaries of legitimate debate

BY ALYSSA ROSENBERG June 13 2014



At the Sixth and I synagogue in Washington on Thursday night, people were reselling tickets out on the street as if a playoff game was taking place inside, rather than a talk by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for the Atlantic. The subject of the event was Coates’s recent cover story for the magazine, “The Case for Reparations,” which has broken traffic records and vanished from newsstands.


(The Atlantic)
While the piece is popular, the turnout for Coates and the reception he received in the sanctuary reflected something larger than the enthusiasm for a single article. “The Case for Reparations” managed to revive and reframe a major policy debate about race in the United States. But the piece is part of a larger project, a redefinition of what counts as a legitimate conversation about race in the United States and an attempt to define what intellectual credentials are required to enter that debate.




http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/06/13/ta-nehisi-coates-and-the-boundaries-of-legitimate-debate/