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 COATESAn America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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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Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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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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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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Racism is, among other things.
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