Ross Douthat - On the Ta-Nehisi Coates vs. Jonathan Chait debate

Ross Douthat responds to the ongoing debate between Chait and Ta-Nehisi Coates on poverty, race and culture.

Over the last two weeks, New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait and The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates, two of the internet’s most admired liberal journalists, have engaged in an extended back-and-forth about the legitimacy of public critiques of cultural dysfunction in poor, inner-city African-American culture — and particularly the kind of critiques offered by President Obama, who often speaks exhortatively about personal and parental responsibility in addresses to black audiences.

Read more: http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/on-coates-v-chait/