My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
TA-NEHISI COATES[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.
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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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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I did not know then that this is what life is – just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you’re swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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[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 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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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