is something inherently, residually wrong with black people. far less frequently to impoverish black folks find a public ally willing and able to insert without qualification their humanity, dignity and absolute worthiness. coates has done so unwaveringly. and watching it happen in realtime has been stunning. i am pleased to welcome to the table, ta-nesehi coates. and we invited jonathan chait, but he was not available. thanks for being here. thanks for having me. this has taken on a high level of public interest. to what do you attribute that at this moment, given that you write about these kinds of things regularly, why has this captured public attention? i don t know. i never know what s going to catch fire and what s not going to catch fire. but i think there s a deep, deep