Alright the old Coates-humor seems to have gone awry in the post below. For the record, the "125th street" line wasn't a gang sign--I live six blocks from 125th. I wasn't being cryptic, seeking cred, or speaking in code. I literally was referring to my own neighborhood. Besides, anyone who knows Harlem knows that the days of using 125th street to garner cred have long passed. If they ever existed in the first place. If you're worried about me "seeking cred" and being exclusionary, you should be flaming those posts on D&D. To the uninitiated, they're indecipherable.
The term I was actually thinking of was "project bourgie" or "ghetto snob." They both generally refer to people who revile the neighborhood for its alleged close-mindedness and ignorance, evidently unaware that their very revulsion marks them as close-minded and ignorant. So, like, old girl is steady pushing this idea of Barack as un-American, and unable to connect with "ordinary Americans," while taking jaunts from New York to London and having journalists address her as "Lady." There is a lot of projecting going on--the ghetto snob is always more ghetto than the people he/she dismisses. Ditto for our friend. To the extent the term exists, who really seems un-American here?
For obvious reasons both of those terms are sort of un-PC. And by noting 125th, I meant to say it's the sort of phraseology that I might be more likely to use face to face, as opposed to on a website read by thousands of people who may now feel free to call any old upwardly mobile black person a "ghetto snob."
That's all there is to it. No terrorist fist-bump. No cry for the Maroons to descend from the hills. No secret drumming meant to convey a racial flame-war on the internets. It's just Ta-Nehisi--as always--too clever by half.
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I didn't read the previous comment thread, but if others gave you crap for the previous post, don't sweat it. I didn't interpret it as a gang sign (perhaps because I've been to 125th Street recently).
Still disagree with about half of what you write here, but I must say you are an improvement over Yglesias, and you are a more entertaining writer and harder worker than most of your Ivy-grad colleagues here (with the possible exception of Ambinder, who actually does some reporting). The Atlantic made a good choice in hiring you, even if it was partly motivated by their version of affirmative action.
And the award for offensively back-handed compliment of the week goes too... Fred!
@Ta-Nehisi: Thanks for the clarification. As a Brit I expect to have to disentangle American references, but references to a subset of Americans need explanation.
Still, I'm sure nothing you write will be as irritatingly insider-y as Yglesias's posts on the DC traffic system/music scene. And unlike Fred, I like Yglesias's stuff.
Hey! We're neighbors! I'm 6 blocks north of 125.
And I dunno if I would call myself a ghetto snob. Just a responsible citizen who tries to respect her property and the others around her and is sick and tired of all the entitlement disrespectful lazies who take but never give back and who look at her like she's some classist bougie.
I keep telling the folks who are resentful of the "changes" going on around them that if you don't take care of what you have, someone's going to take it from you and take care of it themselves. Ah well.
"If you're worried about me "seeking cred" and being exclusionary, you should be flaming those posts on D&D. To the uninitiated, they're indecipherable."
Dude, I'm so initiated, I've got +5 to initiative.
I think its awesome that most people missed the simple come around my way and check me out line. Shows how important this blog can really become.
Growing up in the Heights I know 125th before Magic and Ben and Jerrys. We used to say our hood was protected from "downtown" people because they didn't know there was a hood above Harlem and they would never go there. :P
Maybe I'm overly sensitive but I take the majority of the Average American type comments as code for hey white people, pay attention the guy is freaking black.
Fred, Ambinder is a bought and paid for, all the way in the bag for McCain hack.
The fact the Ta-Nehisi even had to write this post means commenters here really need to lighten up.
Ovid,
Figures you would like Yglesias. There was nothing backhanded about my compliment of Ta-Nehisi. You haven't seen the back of my hand yet.
MikeCee,
To be honest, I don't read Ambinder enough to know what his political biases are, but I wouldn't be surprised if he had some. That's natural. What does impress me is that the kid picks up a phone once in a while and tries to find stuff out.
"The Atlantic made a good choice in hiring you, even if it was partly motivated by their version of affirmative action. "
For the record, I'm quite flattered. No, seriously...
"having journalists address her as 'Lady.'"
See, out here in the Old West, we have a term for this sort of thing too. "Unamerican". (Said unironically, if you can believe that.)
But I say that as someone who thinks that the proper address for The Queen is "Ma'am".
Speaking of D&D, will Coates be addressing the McCain campaign's slam on D&D'ers and the subsequent retraction from the other day?
Yesterday I was going to suggest a venue change to the the IHOP on 134th. I knew I should have said something. But yeah, 125th street is like some sort of Mad Max post apocalyptic danger zone. I don't know which part of 125th street is more dangerous: west side by the Starbucks and Old Navy or east side by the H&M. So don't go there. Ever.
(Disclosure: the Harlem H&M is the only one without a 2 hour wait for the dressing rooms.)
That Old Navy is a fucking war-zone. Have you seen the men's department? Denim everywhere.
The service in that IHOP is sketchy...
"For the record, I'm quite flattered. No, seriously"
You should be. Don't let Ovid's reflexive comment throw you. Think about it. There's truth in what I wrote, and it reflects well on you. The Atlantic may have relaxed its Ivy-grad standards for you, but that turned out to be a good move on their part, since you've got chops, and you're a better blogger than most of their Ivy grads.
This is how AA is supposed to work -- to give a talented brother a shot. In reality, of course, there usually aren't enough talented brothers to go around, so AA usually ends up being a quota system. Nice to see it work as advertised for once though.
I'm perplexed. None of your readers questioned the post in which a chap from FAMU challenged Howard. If they understood that code, why couldn't they get the the reference to 125th?
I think the objection was that 125th was a cliche way to signal street-cred, which I guess it is as a metaphor. But I mostly mentioned it as a literal statement of a well-known place near my actual home.
@ Fred:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOpwye66pEk
This is, apparently, the season of catching the vapors.
"the ghetto snob is always more ghetto than the people he/she dismisses."
Yep. Just like no one is more PC than the "un-PC" conservative.
"Besides, anyone who knows Harlem knows that the days of using 125th street to garner cred have long passed. If they ever existed in the first place."
That's why it seemed part of a desperate and silly attempt to reach out to your black audience while excluding your white audience, and was one of the reasons I wrote my comment on the last thread.
And you can't compare the exclusion of the 125th street post to the exclusion of the D&D posts. In the former you are excluding (or rather I interpreted an attempt to exclude) all non-blacks, while in the latter you are simply excluding all non-dorkwads. As a non-dorkwad myself, I can't say I am offended by the exclusion.
Labor,
You win. It was desperate attempt to exclude you and all my white readers here who pay the bills. It's true. I hate all of you--and I needed to find some way to communicate that to my fellow blacks without you guys detecting it. But you're too clever for me. The jig is up. The revolution has been televised.
this is why blogs are annoying sometimes. . agree w/ AlexG, although i guess i am glad for this post, since i didnt guess what Ta-N was referring to earlier. i should have, i've heard that before..
I got started reading your blog through a link from Andrew Sullivan's page and love it. Some of your readers, going by their comments, seem way too serious. But if you really wanted to fry their noodles, you would have referred to "25th Street" like the old timers. Cheers.
I got started reading your blog through a link from Andrew Sullivan's page and love it. Some of your readers, going by their comments, seem way too serious. But if you really wanted to fry their noodles, you would have referred to "25th Street" like the old timers. Cheers.
I got started reading your blog through a link from Andrew Sullivan's page and love it. Some of your readers, going by their comments, seem way too serious. But if you really wanted to fry their noodles, you would have referred to "25th Street" like the old timers. Cheers.
Jesus Coates. I'm not trying to win! Nor was I saying that you hate whites and were secretly communicating with blacks. That's beyond ridiculous.
What I was saying was that it seemed to me that you were trying too hard to communicate with your black audience at the expense of your white audience. In prior posts I attributed this, unfairly as I have since pointed out in subsequent posts, to your own feelings of not being black enough. As I think I also said earlier, I was projecting onto you what I had observed in others, particularly blacks in professional circles.
I need to get back to work. I'd like to pass around the pipe on this one. Oh wait, you people only smoke blunts.
Just kidding. Keep up the good dialogue.
Jesus Coates. I'm not trying to win! Nor was I saying that you hate whites and were secretly communicating with blacks. That's beyond ridiculous.
What I was saying was that it seemed to me that you were trying too hard to communicate with your black audience at the expense of your white audience. In prior posts I attributed this, unfairly as I have since pointed out in subsequent posts, to your own feelings of not being black enough. As I think I also said earlier, I was projecting onto you what I had observed in others, particularly blacks in professional circles.
I need to get back to work. I'd like to pass around the pipe on this one. Oh wait, you people only smoke blunts.
Just kidding. Keep up the good dialogue.
the days of using 125th street to garner cred have long passed. If they ever existed in the first place.
Tell that to Lou Reed.
@Lady Wesley
IMHO, FAMU folk need to get at Jackson State folk. Leave the Howard/Hampton rivalry for their respective graduates nem.
I thought that the era when obscure urban allusions fell on deaf white ears was over. Didn't we already appropriate that hip-hop stuff?
More fruitful accomplishments of the historic wad accords.
I missed the previous dust-up, but I'll happily take that reference to the Maroons as a personal shout-out.
LOL @ You win. It was desperate attempt to exclude you and all my white readers here who pay the bills. It's true. I hate all of you--and I needed to find some way to communicate that to my fellow blacks without you guys detecting it. But you're too clever for me. The jig is up. The revolution has been televised.
What's up Ta-Nehisi?
I've been checking your blog for a minute, but I must say that it's been very entertaining lately.
(So much so that I'm making my first comment.)
The thing that I find most interesting about the comments and people responses to your cultural references is that they don't realize "other" writers do it all the time and are NEVER called on it. There is this assumption made that if they didn't get the reference, they're not hip or cool, but if you do it, you speaking in code.
Are other writers speaking in code when they make cultural references? Or, are they just referencing something that some readers MAY be unfamiliar with?
Finally, is it just me, or did the responses to "Who Will Speak for the White People" turn out to be totally unexpected? I think that one totally went over peoples heads. (Or, maybe I'm in my own world and I was expecting some sort of discourse on the fact that one person CANNOT represent an entire race of people.)