Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
TA-NEHISI COATESI was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
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[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.
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What I am telling you is that you do not need to know to love, and it is right that you feel it all in any moment. And it is right that you see it through–that you are amazed, then curious, then belligerent, then heartbroken, then numb. You have the right to all of it.
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What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.
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I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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Lot of folks like to mock dumb history, and pretend it’s just a few idiots. Isn’t. It’s the country.
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And I think, like, there’s a crucial difference between being, you know, Joe Schmo in the neighborhood and being the head, you know, of the government that, you know, in many ways is largely responsible for those conditions in the first place.
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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
TA-NEHISI COATES