Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
TA-NEHISI COATESIf George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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I think there’s a sort of, you know, very thin way of reading this that says, well, Barack Obama is biracial thus that gives him some understanding of both white America and black America, but that’s not really it.
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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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I mean, the president, you know, at one point when he was campaigning said I believe that Donald Trump was not qualified to run a 7-Eleven.
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I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn’t mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it’s not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .
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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 can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
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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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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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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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And I think, like, there’s a crucial difference between being, you know, Joe Schmo in the neighborhood and being the head, you know, of the government that, you know, in many ways is largely responsible for those conditions in the first place.
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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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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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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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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’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
TA-NEHISI COATES