Tenacity

Throughout the majority of his memoir, Ta-Nehisi Coates presents himself as an awkward kid with interests that chiefly layed in hip-hop music and video games. Bright and gifted as he was, he had no interest in school. So what spurred him on to become one of the most lauded writers of today? The simple answer is: his parents. Coates make the case that it was his parents who recognized his abilities and talents and wouldn’t give up on him. They were stern and strict about his performance. In fact, his father was militant about it. Ta-Nehisi was met with his father’s black belt more than once when school called about Ta-Nehisi’s poor performance. Despite the fact that Ta-Nehisi often got in trouble at school – as gifted children often do – and his grades were often barely passing, his parents would not give up.

Cheryl Coates had...