Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is billed as one of the nation’s most prominent race reporters, won’t be speaking at Johns Hopkins University tonight. The Baltimore native and correspondent for The Atlantic was scheduled to appear there Tuesday night, but the school canceled on him.
Presumably because of the city’s dangerous riots? But they’re not saying why.
Johns Hopkins hails Coates as “an authority on race in contemporary black America.” He was supposed to speak on the timely topic of race in America.
He apparently had his outfit all picked out.
Coates wrote The Beautiful Struggle, a memoir that chronicles his youth “during the age of crack.”
The format was supposed to be a debate with an assistant professor moderating.
When a female black Twitter follower told Coates that they had started a campaign to get the administration to change its mind about tonight’s debate, he urged them against not to challenge the call.
She then asked him for advice on how they should proceed. “We think bringing people together is important, but what do u think we should do?” asked Geena St. Andrew.
Coates said they should wait for Hopkins to officially decide. (Despite the website saying the event is canceled, Coates still thinks it’s possible that it may still happen.)
But not everyone is hanging on Coates’ every word on the topic.
The Daily Dot‘s contributor Anne Thériault shot out a dose of sarcasm concerning his talent — or perhaps, in her view, so-called talent.
So far, comments on the university’s website about the canceled debate have been tame. But the school said that it reserves the right to delete anything it deems “against the law” or lacking in civility.
