An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
TA-NEHISI COATESIt was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
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[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices-more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe.
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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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The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
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You know, the thing I always think about, you get up early in the morning to go to work and there’s some dude outside drinking and you come home and the same dude is outside drinking hanging on the corner. And then this engenders a level of anger I think and a level of shame.
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Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
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More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people.
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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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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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