You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of 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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The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
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When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
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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 think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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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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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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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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[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.
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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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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
TA-NEHISI COATES
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/grey-grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/blue-grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/red-grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/brown-grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/white-grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama.jpg)

