Ta-Neshi Coates in Discussion with Alex Wagner at 92ndY

Ta-Neshi Coates is an author, journalist & reporter for The Atlantic.  His book "Between the World and Me" received the National Book Award.  Alex Wager is c-anchor for CBS news, previously anchored on MSNBC and is a journalist, author & editor for The Atlantic.  The two dynamic, intelligent and writers/reporters had a warm & companionable banter.  The banter was mostly to promote Wagner's latest book, a autobiographic expose "Futureface: A Family Mystery."  Wagner was born & raised in IA to a Burmese immigrant mother and Caucasian father.  She is an only child who was raised in a white, homogenous city.  She revealed her 1st awareness of being of mixed race when she was 12 & questioned by an adult male who saw her with her father if she was adopted.  This was an epiphany of her bi-racial, duo nationalistic heritage.  "Futureface" is Wagner's contention that future generations will continue to flourish with mixed ethnicities which should lend itself to a merging populations into one a hybrid, egalitarian race.  Her book, with plenty of "buzz kills" is Wagner's search for her family's history on both her mother/grandmother Burma born nationality and her father's American, Irish heritage.  There were plenty of "spoiler alerts" from Coates as to Wagner's discoveries.  And Wagner talk about the blooded history of Burma and the US and that no country is free from persecution.  Her journey of discovery is the focus of her book.  Coates maintained that black America is a Creole race but there is a class system in which lighter skin are more highly regarded and treated and that a class system is far from being eviscerated.