TNC Keeps His Cool

Responding to righteous outrage at conservative race-baiting, the Atlantic's indispensable Ta-Nehisi Coates says he feels not rage or disgust. In fact, he says he feels "a little giddy":

Barack Obama, bourgeois in every way that bourgeois is right and just, will not dance. He tells kids to study--and they seethe. He accepts an apology for an immature act of rudeness--and they go hysterical. He takes his wife out for a date--and their veins bulge. His humanity, his ordinary blackness, is killing them. Dig the audio of his response to Kanye West--the way he says, "He's a jackass." He sounds like one of my brothers. And that's the point, because that's what he is. Barack Obama refuses to be their nigger. And it's driving them crazy.

It's about time.