I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
TA-NEHISI COATESNever forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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That’s not an accident that Donald Trump didn’t begin with, say, trade or jobs or anything, that he actually began by otherizing the first African-American president of the United States.
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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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Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
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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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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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It was a week after Donald Trump had won. And initially he was still optimistic. He felt that things would be OK ultimately. And I have to tell you, this is the area where, you know, I see, you know, some degree of contradiction.
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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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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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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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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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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
TA-NEHISI COATES