Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
TA-NEHISI COATESLot of folks like to mock dumb history, and pretend it’s just a few idiots. Isn’t. It’s the country.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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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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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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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 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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
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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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[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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[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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The symbolism was in – and this sounds really, really small, but it’s actually big for African-Americans – the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES