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[Replaced_Texan]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

Coates is not a star. He’s a darling of a niche of readers who think his stuff is quality. He’s a decent enough writer, but generally a one trick pony. All roads lead to grievance. He also engages in a bit of clickbait writing by arguing for reparations. It’s not that he doesn’t have some decent points, but he’s on permanent repeat. You criticize Taibbi for endlessly milking the same media criticisms. That’s fair. Taibbi does mine the vein a bit too frequently. In the same manner, Coates see everything through a lens of race theory and grievance.

Taibbi, unlike Coates (and Sullivan) remains interesting because he has a bit more range, and most importantly - this is huge - he has a sense of humor. Coates takes himself brutally seriously. So does Sullivan. That makes their stuff tedious.

I’m not interested in the point you were making because I think it’s an example of Coates being a bore and a windbag. He and Sullivan deserve each other.

I've been reading Coates at the Atlantic and other places for well over a decade and that's not a characterization of him and his writing that I would say sticks. He's very good at painting pictures of his upbringing in Baltimore, of his studies of French, of his family. None of that is grievance. It's his reality, which is different from my reality. I find it really interesting and informative. I didn't pick up his run on Black Panther, but it got mixed reviews.

Yes, he talks about reparations and what is and has been done to black bodies. But he talks about a lot of other things too.