Ta-Nehisi Coates is the author of Between the World and Me and a national correspondent for The Atlantic. His latest cover story is “My President Was Black."

“[People] have come to see me as somebody with answers, but I don’t actually have answers. I’ve never had answers. The questions are the enthralling thing for me. Not necessarily at the end of the thing getting somewhere that’s complete—it’s the asking and repeated asking. I don’t know how that happened, but I felt like after a while it got to the point where I was seen as having unique answers, and I just didn’t. I really, really didn’t.”

Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode.


@tanehisicoates
Coates on Longform
[00:15] The 100th Episode of the Longform Podcast
[00:45] "My President Was Black" (Atlantic • Dec 2016)
[01:15] Longform’s Best of 2016 List
[01:45] Shane Bauer on the Longform Podcast
[02:00] "Prince of the Forty Thieves" (David Gauvey Herbert • Atavist • Dec 2016)
[03:15] Coates’s First Appearance on the Longform Podcast
[03:15] Coates’s Second Appearance on the Longform Podcast
[03:15] Coates’s Third Appearance on the Longform Podcast
[04:30] Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet (Marvel • 2016)
[09:30] Between the World and Me (Spiegel & Grau • 2015)
[09:45] "The Case for Reparations" (Atlantic • Jun 2014)
[13:45] Coates’s Archive at Washington City Paper
[16:45] "On Homecomings" (Atlantic • May 2016)
[18:45] "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration" (Atlantic • Oct 2015)
[20:45] "Fear of a Black President" (Atlantic • Sep 2012)
[21:15] Jonathan Chait’s Archive at New York
[30:30] "The Cosby Show" (Atlantic • Nov 2014)
[35:15] Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance (Barack Obama • Three Rivers Press • 2004)
[35:30] "‘The Filter…Is Powerful’: Obama on Race, Media, and What It Took to Win" (Atlantic • Dec 2016)
[43:45] "Obama’s Full Remarks at Howard University Commencement Ceremony" (Politico Staff • Politico • May 2016)
[50:30] Nate Silver on the Longform Podcast
[51:30] "Other People’s Pathologies" (Atlantic • Mar 2014)