Author Ta-Nehisi Coates

Howard University graduate Ta-Nehisi Coates has a gift.

If you read only one article today, read “This is How We Lost to the White Man:” The Audacity of Bill Cosby’s Conservatism,” Mr. Coates’ web-only article at the theatlantic.com.

Then buy and read his new book, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.  One Amazon reviewer, Stacia Brown, captured my own feelings about the author’s style: “[N]early every page contains a sentence so lush or confessional you can’t help but envy its construction . . . The Beautiful Struggle is like an urban Pilgrim’s Progress, a hip-hop infused allegory about how to survive Baltimorean boyhood, about how to overcome academic mediocrity, about how to stop acting as your own eclipse and finding some way–any way–to shine.”

Conflict Between Alice Walker and Daughter Rebecca

I was saddened to see the post at Salon.com about an article Rebecca Walker had written in London’s Daily Mail criticizing her mother Alice.