The symbolism was in – and this sounds really, really small, but it’s actually big for African-Americans – the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.
TA-NEHISI COATESI’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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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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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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 think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It’s the weight on our shoulders. That is what’s actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.
TA-NEHISI COATES