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.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhen you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
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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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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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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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And I think that’s reflected in the fact that, when we have problems that really are problems of employment, that are really problems of mental health, that are really problems of drugs, our answer is the police.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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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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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
TA-NEHISI COATES