Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
TA-NEHISI COATESHumans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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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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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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These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
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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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I mean, the president, you know, at one point when he was campaigning said I believe that Donald Trump was not qualified to run a 7-Eleven.
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The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
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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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My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
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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.
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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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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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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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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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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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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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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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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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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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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[Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.
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That’s not an accident that Donald Trump didn’t begin with, say, trade or jobs or anything, that he actually began by otherizing the first African-American president of the United States.
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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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And I think, like, there’s a crucial difference between being, you know, Joe Schmo in the neighborhood and being the head, you know, of the government that, you know, in many ways is largely responsible for those conditions in the first place.
TA-NEHISI COATES