Just Joshing.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard Staff Photographer

He looks a little bit like Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in this picture, no? or a Marco Rubio contemporary...
Young, dark and handsome.

By Christina Pazzanese, Harvard Staff Writer

Ongoing racial discrimination and institutional failures to dampen such abuses are roiling many college campuses, amid the larger national conversation spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement. In the swirl, few writers have so artfully articulated their era as the influential, best-selling author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

The national correspondent for The Atlantic and a 2015 MacArthur Foundation fellowship recipient, Coates’ article “The Case for Reparations” and his new book, “Between the World and Me,” are deeply powerful exhortations on the present-day manifestations of the nation’s fraught racial history.

Professional politicians, more than old-time Political Fixers...  articulating the swirl.

Asked to weigh in on the Yale University protest over racial discrimination and free speech, Coates said he didn’t feel sufficiently informed to render an opinion. But he characterized a debate there over offensive Halloween costumes and emails as undoubtedly a symptom of far deeper issues.

“I think, in these cases, we’re like five questions too late,” he said. “By the time that has become important, something else has really, really gone wrong.”