Ta-Nehisi Coates Wins National Book Award!!!
Read an excerpt in The Atlantic.....a sample from one of our greatest American writers...
The host read these words for the audience, and when she finished she turned to the subject of my body, although she did not mention it specifically. But by now I am accustomed to intelligent people asking about the condition of my body without realizing the nature of their request. Specifically, the host wished to know why I felt that white America’s progress, or rather the progress of those Americans who believe that they are white, was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history.
There is nothing extreme in this statement. Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God. This defiance is not to be much dwelled upon. Democracy is a forgiving God and America’s heresies—torture, theft, enslavement—are specimens of sin, so common among individuals and nations that none can declare themselves immune. In fact, Americans, in a real sense, have never betrayed their God. When Abraham Lincoln declared, in 1863, that the battle of Gettysburg must ensure “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” he was not merely being aspirational. At the onset of the Civil War, the United States of America had one of the highest rates of suffrage in the world. The question is not whether Lincoln truly meant “government of the people” but what our country has, throughout its history, taken the political term people to actually mean. In 1863 it did not mean your mother or your grandmother, and it did not mean you and me. As for now, it must be said that the elevation of the belief in being white was not achieved through wine tastings and ice-cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor, and land.
That Sunday, on that news show, I tried to explain this as best I could within the time allotted. But at the end of the segment, the host flashed a widely shared picture of a 12-year-old black boy tearfully hugging a white police officer. Then she asked me about “hope.” And I knew then that I had failed. And I remembered that I had expected to fail. And I wondered again at the indistinct sadness welling up in me. Why exactly was I sad? I came out of the studio and walked for a while. It was a calm late-November day. Families, believing themselves white, were out on the streets. Infants, raised to be white, were bundled in strollers. And I was sad for these people, much as I was sad for the host and sad for all the people out there watching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized then why I was sad. When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is tree houses and the Cub Scouts. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option, because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies. And knowing this, knowing that the Dream persists by warring with the known world, I was sad for the host, I was sad for all those families, I was sad for my country, but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you.
= new reply since forum marked as read
this guy might get a Nobel if he is not careful 
Coates deserves it a million times over and utmost respect to him. 
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My dad is on life support. He's 86 and we'll have to make a decision soon.
So I'm filled me with joy I haven't felt in a while (((hug))) Thanks for posting, tishaLA!
It's wonderful to read good news in such a broken world. It helps to remember even though the ugly may be overwhelming that there is a lot of good out there, too 
Yeah, every once in a while a writer comes along who can put so much in perspective at once, is so good that his or her word cannot be hidden or ignored 
Germany and a cousin from his marriage to a German woman (RIP to Aunt J). Uncle absolutely loves the country and we have to visit them because they're not ever coming here 
Maybe it's Germany that's really excellent.
I was born in Germany. My father was in the military at the time and applied for citizenship for me there and of course as offspring of a U.S. citizen I was also a citizen here in the U.S. I have returned many times, and love visiting Europe, especially Germany. Beautiful country, beautiful people. I lived in a beautiful town call Bayreuth when I was there the last time. The people were warm and welcoming. I love it here in the U.S. also. If I had to choose of any other place I would rather live, it would be Germany. 
I lived in Germany for many years and vacationed in France sometimes. I like vacationing in Spain better, but then I suppose it is because I have lots of friends and family there. I too am as you say you are, waiting to hear what his perceptions might be. I believe his wife has lived in Paris before they got married, and is the one that most wanted to return to that country. I think I saw him on a show one day explaining that part of his reason for moving there was so that his son could learn the culture, see some other aspects of the world, and maybe get a break from some of the racism that is occurring here in the U.S. in regards to Police Brutality etc. He is going to find that racism is prevalent throughout the world, of that you can be sure. 
exceptional perspective from abroad. And Germany such a really cool country. I always say I must have been German in a past life because the food to me is extraordinary!
But, monicaangela!, I cannot to save my life totally understand the language. It was a bitch for me to learn!!!, if you call what I know learning 
I'm laughing at myself.
I am able to understand it a lot better than I speak it. My mother didn't allow me to go to German schools while I was there, I always went to school on post. However, as a kid I had many German friends, still do today, that is how I learned what I know today. Never laugh at yourself, even if you know a little, it is more than what most people in this nation know when it comes to foreign languages. I'm not laughing at myself.
Deep down, I am thankful for the little I know that's expanded my world, just because of a little traveling. It's not a small thing
