I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
TA-NEHISI COATESI think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhen you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
TA-NEHISI COATESI am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
TA-NEHISI COATESThe standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
TA-NEHISI COATESAnd they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
TA-NEHISI COATESI 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 .
TA-NEHISI COATESYou 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.
TA-NEHISI COATESI think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
TA-NEHISI COATESHumans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
TA-NEHISI COATESThe essence of American racism is disrespect.
TA-NEHISI COATESI would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
TA-NEHISI COATESAnd 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.
TA-NEHISI COATESMore specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people.
TA-NEHISI COATESYou don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhat 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.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhen nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
TA-NEHISI COATES