Ta-Nehisi Coates: Black People in Baltimore Are Subjected to Violence All the Time

He's an extremely talented writer. Sure, he overstates his case most of the time, but he pushes all the right buttons with eloquence. That's why he's god-like on the radical left.

At the Atlantic, "The Clock Didn't Start With the Riots":

When I was going to school, I thought about every little article that I wore when I walked out the house. I thought about who I was walking with. I thought about how many of them there were. I thought about what neighborhoods they were from. I thought about which route I was going to take to school. Once I got to school I thought about what I was going to do during the lunch hour—was I actually going to have lunch or was I going to go sit in the library. When school was dismissed I thought about what time I was going to leave school. I thought about whether I should stay after-school for class. I thought about whether I should take the bus up to my grandmother’s house. I thought about which way I should go home if I was going to go home. Every one of those choices was about the avoidance of violence, about the protection of my body. And so I don’t want to come off as if I’m sympathizing or saying that it is necessarily okay, to inflict violence just out of anger, no matter how legitimate that anger is.

Smart kid.

Keep reading (via Memeorandum).