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 COATESYou don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
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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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[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
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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 I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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I’m asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.
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All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy.
TA-NEHISI COATES