In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
TA-NEHISI COATESReparations 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
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Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
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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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I’m asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.
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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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An 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.
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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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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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