TNC ON RACE AND THE SOUTH

southern son, klan father

Nathan Bedford Forrest Has Beautiful Eyes - Ta-Nehisi Coates

Hua and I were talking the other day about how much things have changed for us as writers since the beginning of the decade - suffice to say, there's been a massive transformation and not necessarily for the better, at least from a freelancing point of view. Back in the heady days of, oh, 2002, it'd be more than enough to get a column-length piece into the SF Bay Guardian about music or art or culture and that, to us, was the ideal kind of platform to work out our ideas.

Of course, the emergent blogosphere created an exponentially greater number of platforms and obviously, I had no qualms in taking advantage of it for personal use (i.e. you're reading this blog, no?) But as we all know, the spread of blogging was one of the forces that weakened the older print base I had taken for granted in my 20s. And for the last five or so years, what we've seen is a decline in print opportunities, a proliferation of online voices but dare I say - the level and quality of discourse didn't carry over mediums. It just hasn't.

That's why I've been so floored by what Ta-Nehisi Coates has been doing over on his Atlantic blog. Practically daily, he penning these incredibly thoughtful and provocative posts that, in my mind, realize the full potential of what a blog can do in terms of speed-to-publish (a main liability of today's print press), not to mention sheer quantity, but without sacrificing intellectual alacrity or quality of prose.

This is one example of what blogging writing should aspire to, regardless of the medium, but I am ever so thankful TNC's holding it down online.

Anyways, read his latest post and see what I mean for yourself.

--O.W.