things together. i mean, did you say, "i'm going to be a writer," and then all of a sudden you realized that your life was on the internet or...? >> no, i wrote off-line, in print, for about 12 years almost exclusively, and it's so funny. colson whitehead has this recent piece about writers who complain that twitter and blogging is going to destroy their writing. and it's actually a split that i never really understood much. i love print, and i like blogging and i like tweeting. you know, i like a lot of things. and so it never really struck me as being in contrast or even being a problem or, you know, it being two different worlds or anything like that. it's just writing. >> hinojosa: you're able to divide up your time so that you can blog at one part of the day and then write long form at another part? >> uh, i don't even think about it like that. it's very unconscious for me. >> hinojosa: tell me how you do it. >> well, i'm not good at much else, so that's the first thing, you know? i don't really have, like, other j... i'm going to write. that's what i'm going to do, or i'm not going to do anything. and so i figure if this is the one thing i'm good at, you know, i can devote all of my energies to that. i mean, i guess, i'm a parent and a husband, so i'm pretty good at those things, too. i like to compliment myself as being pretty good at those things also. but professionally, i don't... you know, there's not much fallback or, you know, much slack for anything else. so i'm going to write, like i am. there's not too much in the way of compulsion. and i want to write. i go to bed thinking about it, i wake up in the morning thinking about it. so it's pretty natural for me. that doesn't mean it's easy, the act of writing is easy. but, you know, it's not very hard for me to sit, you know, to say i'm going to... >> hinojosa: what you've understood that you want to write about is, well, multiple experiences, but a lot of what you write about is your experience of being a young, black, professional man, who happens to be a "mr. mom" some of the time. >> yes. >> hinojosa: who's trying to figure out, like we all are, you know, who are we in this world today? >> right. >> hinojosa: and you write deeply personal, deeply revealing stuff. >> right. >> hinojosa: that is great to read. >> right. >> hinojosa: but it also, i mean, you don't make a secret of your own family background. >> no. >> hinojosa: you kind of repeat it all the time. >> i do. >> hinojosa: and it becomes almost like this little box. >> right, right. >> hinojosa: but let's just go ahead and put that box out there. >> okay. i was born in 1975 in west baltimore. my father is... my father and my mother grew up in grinding poverty, my mother in the projects of west baltimore, my father in north philadelphia and, you know, other areas of philadelphia. he went off-- because i talk about him quite a bit-- he went off to the vietnam war, became radicalized by the war. war tends to have that effect on, you know, generations. joined the black panther party, has... how many of us? i lose count sometimes. there are seven of us. has seven kids. we have four different mothers, but we're all very tight. i was raised in the middle of that in what i often say on paper looked like an utter mess, but in my world was actually quite practical and worked very fine. >> hinojosa: i love that. i love the fact that you basically say, you know, "if you see it on paper, out there you're going to think that my life looked like an utter mess." >> right. >> hinojosa: because of the fact that seven kids from four different moms... >> right. >> hinojosa: you know, a dad... but the wonderful thing that you do with your life's work is that you're challenging all these stereotypes. >> yeah, and i think, like, very early it developed in me a deep distrust in statistics and how they erase individual experience. and so in life, in my life and my work, i guess being who i am, there's really no other way for me to look at it. i've been very obsessed with the experiences of individuals, because i think that's where the humanity of people is. in all of our great societal evils that we talk about-- racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, et cetera-- what you're really talking about is the erasure of individual lives, the sort of melding into, you know, this sort of one, blurry, gray thing that, you know, you call black and you put in a box over here, you call gay, you put in a box over here. >> hinojosa: so let's go back a little bit to, um, to talking about your family and why you want to talk about that in the form of a novel and why you want to tweet about it or blog about it. >> right. >> hinojosa: is that part of what you're saying, that with your own work you're like, "yes, i'm a serious writer, but i want you to know that i'm dealing with the stroller, the rain, the whatever, you know, getting a cab..." you want to be that personal because of what? >> well, i want to come across as a person, you know. the beautiful thing about blogging and twitter is i really believe it takes away... so at one point writers were here, like writing was something that people up here did. and maybe for reasons of my own biography, throughout my own study what was revealed to me was that the writer was a citizen. that really is the beautiful thing about being a writer and being, you know, being a journalist, being whoever, is that you have to live among people, or you have to have some sort of deep understanding of people at least, and the nature of people if you're going to write. and so i really, really, you know, seriously embrace that, you know, the democratic aspects of writing, the democratic aspects of blogging and having to answer to and answer for that sort of mass of people who are out there doing whatever, but don't necessarily have the fortune of, you know, writing in illustrious magazines or whatever, but are just as intelligent and have something to contribute. so i... i didn't want to sit on a throne. you know, i never wanted that. i wanted to be among people. and that's what i enjoy most about twitter, and that's what i enjoy most about blogging. >> hinojosa: do you feel that twitter or blogging is a good space for us as a society to... to use when we're talking about race? >> i think it's as good as any other. that's what i would say. it may ultimately be proven to be a bad space, but it won't be any worse than any other space. i think that's the best i could say. and i say that because all things have their drawbacks, right? but specifically to those sorts of things, obviously there's the whole geographical question. it puts people who don't necessarily live around each other in contact with each other. >> hinojosa: well, kind of... kind of in contact. i mean, it's a, you know, you've lived in harlem. >> right. >> hinojosa: it's a very different thing to be talking with someone who lives in harlem as opposed to then having two races confront each other on a street in harlem. >> right. so, um, but if you put that against what was before, which was not talking at all, i think it's a measured improvement. as you say, it's definitely qualified, but as opposed to not talking at all... i mean, again, for me, i've just learned so much about white people, because i now have to write... you know, that's a large part of my audience. and they write back, and they tell you about their world and they tell you about their little individual tics. you know, i'm a kid from west baltimore. i grew up around, you around, in 95% black environments all my life up through college. i don't know white people on an intimate level. but you learn, you know, if you want to know, if you truly... if you're open for that. there's just so much to hear out there. >> hinojosa: you know, you grew up in this place in west baltimore, and you have spoken about the fact that, you know, when you were growing up, it was at the height of the crack epidemic... >> right. >> hinojosa: it wasn't exactly the wire, but it was close. >> right. >> hinojosa: and you know that those same conditions still exist... >> right. >> hinojosa: in a lot of our communities. not just black, but white and latino communities. >> right. >> hinojosa: that kind of entrenched poverty in communities where drugs are, you know, implanted. >> right. >> hinojosa: so what about them in the conversation? i mean, have things gotten qualitatively better for them? >> it's a huge problem; it's a huge problem. but, um, i'm sitting here with you right now, you know? i could also be back there, too. i don't want to take a totally selfish view of that, but, you know, these are actual facts. there's somebody who... i'll put it to you like this: when i was a kid in 1987, 1988 in west baltimore, um... and again, not to be totally egotistical, i would have loved to have read a book like the beautiful struggle. in fact, i wrote the beautiful struggle for me in 1987, 1988. to hear somebody out there who, i think, reflects that world view, that particula in and of itself, a step forward. it's not a step forward as in, you know, you look at census numbers and you see, well, this is, you know, college-educated, da-da-da-da-da... but there's progress that's demonstrable in a sort of sociological way, but there's also progress of the soul. and i deeply believe in that, that things can feel differently for certain people, that you can derive a certain amount of comfort. i wrote a piece on malcolm x for the magazine, and one of the things i was saying in the blogging about the piece was that people, when confronted with malcolm x, always say, "but what did he do?" "what policy did he pass?" and i think that that's a really impoverished way of looking at human progress, you know. we are... not to overdo this word, but spiritual beings. our souls need things, you know. we need to feel better about walking down our streets. we need to feel like we have some sort of purpose, that there's someone out there, you know, who sort of shares us, who reflects how we see the world. so i think there are all sorts of progresses, and, you know, they might not necessarily track, you know, with socioeconomic indicators, but they're real nonetheless. >> hinojosa: i love the title of your memoir, the beautiful struggle, because you're not negating the fact that it was hard. >> right. >> hinojosa: you know, it was difficult to be poor, and the fact that your parents made a decision about giving you that experience of living in a predominantly african-american working-class community. >> right. >> hinojosa: your mom said something really beautiful. she said, "i never want you to be afraid of your own people." >> right, right. >> hinojosa: it was also very dangerous, right? because then all of a sudden your brother, your older brother, starts carrying a weapon. >> right-- right, right. >> hinojosa: and it's just like we... who are we as black men? how do we survive? >> right, right. >> hinojosa: what do you talk about with your mom these days now? >> the same thing. i got an 11-year-old son, and she thinks the same thing about him. i mean, she doesn't want him to be afraid of his people, you know? so the conversation is very, very similar. of course, you know, in another generation, you'd wonder, "well, what does that mean now?" like, things change, things are different. his relationship to african americans will not be what my relationship is. and my relationship certainly isn't what my parents' was. nevertheless, we're all very much influenced, you know, by how we come up, who we grow up with. >> hinojosa: so does your son talk to your dad about the fact that he was a black panther? >> yes. in fact, my son is reading the autobiography of malcolm x right now, over the summer. >> hinojosa: and your son is 11? >> yes. >> hinojosa: now, you talk about the fact that in your family, mom and dad-- you know, there could have been all kinds of crazy stuff going on out on the street, in terms of guns and drugs and police and all that. and you were inside your home, being forced to read ishmael reed. >> yes. >> hinojosa: i love that image. so are you doing that to your son? are you, like, "no, no, no, no, no, you have to stay home and read the autobiography of malcolm x? >> yeah, but you know what? he's a lot more adept than i was and he's quicker. he's actually... he's a much quicker reader and, you know, he comprehends things a lot faster, i think, than i did and is mature in ways that i was not. i think that, in and of itself, is a problem. because i experienced a lot of failure early on, and i think it chastened me for life, and this kid is such a whiz that it doesn't register in the same way. so i worry about that-- i worry about him not experiencing failure till he's, like, 25 or something and how he'll react. >> hinojosa: and you write about the experience of being a black father that your own dad said, "you know what? those of us black fathers who are present in our children's lives are really heroes." we miss the opportunity to be seen as heroes. you wrote about-- i love this-- a movement of making all black men now, leaving the 'hood and an army of black mr. moms. >> that was ten years ago. >> hinojosa: yeah, do you feel the same way? >> i'm much less idealistic now. you know, you get absorbed by the work of you as an individual father, you know, making sure what gets done is supposed to get done. >> hinojosa: so what do you say to your fellow brethren who are african-american men, who are raising their children? and there are many of you. i mean, it's a story that i've done and have been wanting to do a lot in terms of the mainstream. >> right. >> hinojosa: because you are, in fact, invisible. >> right. >> hinojosa: so what do you say to the outside world? >> to a father, i say, "keep doing the work." because that's the most important thing, you know. keep your head down and keep doing the work. >> hinojosa: of being present with your children. >> yes-- yes, yes, yes. in terms of the outside world, as crazy as it sounds, i don't much concern myself with that. i say this all the time and i strongly believe it: "ignorance is the burden of the ignorant." and people who only want to see a certain thing when they think about african americans, when they think about fatherhood, when they think about child-rearing in the african-american community... i don't know how much you can change that, you know. >> hinojosa: except by example. >> except by example, you know. and people who will be changed by that are going to... i really believe, people who want to be changed, people who are looking, who are out there searching, who are seeking and want to see something different. >> hinojosa: so when you think about black fatherhood... and we're going to start at the conversation around barack obama, kind of in that place of being a black father, who talks about, "i am so happy to be home for dinner every day." >> right. >> "being able to see my kids." has he played a central role in terms of breaking down that image, again, of a strong black man? even, you know, everybody talks about bill cosby, but... >> right. >> difference there in terms of barack obama, his presence, what he's saying about being a father? >> i hope so. i really, really hope so. i don't know. i think, again, people who want to be prejudiced and want to harbor bias very easily disqualify evidence. for those who are searching, maybe so. within the african-american community, i think there can't help but be great pride in seeing that image on display and a father who's actively involved with his kids, who is often photographed with his kids, who's often photographed with his wife. it's so very, very different than the image of what you usually see in terms of african-american masculinity. people who live in black communities know that the everyday experience, lived portrait of african-american masculinity, is quite diverse. and it very much, you know, includes people like barack obama that, in that sense-- and please don't take this as a shot-- he's not special, that it's not an original thing. that we see it in our communities all the time. but for it to be broadcast to the rest of the world is-- that's special, and that's different. and so i think there's a great degree of pride, um... i had the luxury of interviewing michelle obama in the run-up to the election, and one of the great things that she said that always sticks with me is that, you know... she talked about their own family. she said, "there are thousands of us out there just like this. it's just not something that folks usually see on their tv network, you know." but if you live in an african-american community, you see it all the time. these awful statistics that we hear are true and should not be downplayed, but they have a kind of tyrannical effect of obliterating the rest of that reality. so if i tell you one-third of african americans are poor, well, that's tragic when you look at the poverty statistics for other ethnic groups. but if you live in an african-american community, the fact of the matter is that most people aren't poor. and you see that, you experience that on a daily and a pretty regular basis as you move through the community. so those two things do not experience the same place in the conversation, but it's something that, you know, you know is true as an african american. >> hinojosa: so i'm wondering about the experience of your father and your mother. because you... your parents were actively kind of counterculture. >> right. >> hinojosa: you call them "old hippies." >> right, they were old hippies. >> hinojosa: you know, black old hippies, african-american "hippies." and yet even though they were forcing you and all of your brothers and sisters to question mainstream american society... >> right. >> hinojosa: they were also never giving you a pass. >> no, they were very into school. >> hinojosa: it was not like, you know what, you know, "the system is bad," "the man is bad," "you've got to question," therefore anything can happen. no, you had to study hard. you were expected. and you... >> and i wasn't very good at it. >> hinojosa: that's what i found fascinating. (coates laughing) you knew you were smart, but you were, like, "i'm not even going to try." and i was, like, you know, ta-nehisi could have been one of those, again, those statistics of a young black kid who's acting out, who's getting into teachers' faces. what was going on for you? >> you know, my mom was recently talking to my wife about this, and she said something very true. she said, "ta-nehisi was never lazy. he just only wanted to work hard at what he wanted to work hard at." and that was pretty much true. of course, that explains a lot about becoming a writer, because when you become a writer, you only have to work hard at what you really, really want to work hard at. um... that was my problem, that was my problem. i don't know... one day i'm going to get a brain scan, and they're going to tell me why, but... >> hinojosa: did you understand at that moment the fact that for your parents, they were looking at your life and saying, "oh, my god..." >> i did. >> "he is getting up into teachers' faces." >> i did. >> "he is having street fights. we live in west baltimore. he is just a young black kid." >> i did, and i was very scared for myself. >> hinojosa: did you admit that? >> did i admit that? maybe not. but i was, and i remember being very afraid when i thought about my future, all the way up, probably through college, uh, through dropping out of college and probably through the early years of my son's life. i was very much afraid of my own.. about my own future and what would become of me, because, um, it was very much instilled in me that if you did not do good in school, you could expect to have problems in this world. and i never, at no point, you know, during school, higher ed, you know, was never much of a student. the other part of that was i knew very intelligent african americans who had had problems in the world. that was a fact. intelligence insured nothing. so i was very much afraid for my own future. >> hinojosa: but yet you were pretty tough on the outside. >> i was, in ways that probably i didn't understand myself, but i think, you know, if there's one thing that wins out over all, it's a kind of tenacity of belief. and i did have that. i was tenacious. >> hinojosa: so what's your message to kids, whether they're black or not, who are just kind of like, you know, "i don't fit in," and "i'm not sure if i can even call myself an iconoclast, but i feel like i am"? what do you say to them about harnessing that? >> i think you need to find something you love and hold to it for dear life and just be really, really tenacious about it, about making that thing real, whatever it is. what were you here to do? i go to bed thinking about writing, i wake up in the morning thinking about writing. the only thing i think about more than writing is my family. that's the only thing. i have three things in my life: family, health, writing. that's it. you know, writing is not a job for me. it's almost a biological function. you need to find what your biological function is and cling to it. >> hinojosa: yeah, but probably when you were 15, if somebody said that, you'd be just like, "what are they talking about? find the thing that you love and..." >> but you know what? it's what i did, though, even then. i mean, i wrote even then. like it was a biolog... i wrote outside of class. i wrote, you know, when i wasn't assigned. i just did it. i read like it was natural to me, the way people breathe. again, it wasn't easy. i failed at it. but i couldn't stop myself from writing. so i would urge people to find the thing that they can't stop themselves from doing. especially young kids, and i tell them all the time. and pursue it aggressively, cling to it, you know? ride it like those guys in the rodeo, you know. don't get knocked off the horse. i really think tenacity is the key to it all. i believe that. >> hinojosa: so one of the things that you also mentioned and that you reveal a lot in your writing is the fact that, um, you're not perfect. you know, you carry this baggage. you have your own ideas about, um, you know, about your own ethnocentricity. >> right. >> your own ability to be a feminist or not. >> right. >> you're very self-critical. >> right. >> hinojosa: why? why put it out there? >> well, i started writing when i was five, six, maybe seven. and the first things i wrote were assignments from my mother when i got in trouble. and i would have to write these essays on what i did and why i did it and... >> hinojosa: i love that. wow! >> yeah, so that was... i've been doing that for a long, long time. >> hinojosa: and your mom would just say, "ta-nehisi, you sit down and you're going to write to me..." what, a ten-page paper? >> no, i was young, so it would be, like, five sentences on what you did, why you did it, what you were thinking at the time. >> hinojosa: so cute. >> and she saved those. they're in a box somewhere. but that really is the beginning of it for me. and to be honest, writing is a very selfish activity for me. so if it's not about self-discovery, what else is it about? it's not for other people. if other people want to come and watch, that's great. >> hinojosa: so does it become self-indulgent then? >> maybe. i don't know. i don't know, you know. i'll let other people tell me that. >> hinojosa: what's it like to be working at a place like the atlantic when they all know that you dropped out of howard university? (coates laughing) >> hinojosa: i mean, you know, this is a time when competition in the mainstream world of journalism is hard. >> yeah. >> hinojosa: and here you are, and you don't have a degree. >> right. when i first got to the atlantic, all my co-bloggers were ivy league graduates. not only was i not an ivy league graduate, i was a drop-out. the atlantic didn't care. they've never cared. they have no concerns about that at all. from the time i got there up until the present, i've always been spectacularly supported, spectacularly encouraged. i came to the atlantic with no reputation at all for anything, and just on a hunch, they gave me a shot to write for the magazine first and then to blog later. they've been really amazing about that. >> hinojosa: so in terms of the activism of your generation, what do you want to see from them? >> i want them to be critical thinkers, and i want them to interrogate themselves. michael irvin posed for the cover of out magazine and came out in favor of gay rights and talked about why he was for gay rights and everything. michael irvin was a wide receiver for the dallas cowboys in their heyday. ultimate jock, ultimate, you know, sort of macho dude. and here he is posing on the cover of a gay magazine and talking about his commitment toward gay rights. married man, very christian, deeply religious. what most impressed me about his stance was not that he stood for gay rights but that he was very self-critical of himself and his own behavior and how he'd been through the years and what his relation was to gays and how that had shaped his own behavior. that sort of self-criticism, that sort of introspection i think is underrated. we're very high on having young people go out and analyze the world. but, you know, i believe in a kind of egalitarian selfishness, a self-centeredness that is not so much self-aggrandizing but really seeks to understand your relationship to the broader community. i think any real activism has to be grounded in a sort of selfishness, a broadminded selfishness. >> hinojosa: so you're basically saying now to young people, "look at yourselves..." >> yes. >> hinojosa: "see your own power..." >> right. >> hinojosa: "believe in your voice..." >> right. >> hinojosa: "believe in it deeply." >> right. >> hinojosa: "because you are in fact powerful." >> right, yeah, you are. and believe that, you know, whatever your fight is in the world... you aren't just doing it because it's a good thing. i mean, those are good reasons. but you're doing it, you know, because it will improve you, because it will improve the generation of your children. you have a stake in this, an actual, real stake. it's not just the right thing to do. >> hinojosa: ta-nehisi coates, thanks for all of your writing, for all of your perspective, for your blogging and tweeting. we appreciate it. thanks. >> thank you so much. this was a pleasure. >> pleasure. >> thank you. thank you. >> hinojosa: continue the conversation at wgbh.org/oneonone. ñ[qupowowú!ú% funding for "overhead" with evan smith is provided in part by m.f.i. foundation, improving the quality of life withinur community. and from the texas board of legal specialization, board certified attorneys in your community. experienced, respected, and tested. also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy. and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation. and viewers like you. thank you. i'm evan smh. he's the united states senator from vermont who self-describes as a socialist, serves as an independent, and may run for president as a democrat in016. he's the honorable bernie saers. this is "overheard." [applause]. >> actually, there are not two sides to every issue. >> so i guess we can't fire him now. >> i guess we can't fire him now.

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