Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
TA-NEHISI COATESThe best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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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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I don’t know how you bridge that contradiction, but I felt that Barack Obama was sincere. It didn’t feel like a line to me.
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This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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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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What I am telling you is that you do not need to know to love, and it is right that you feel it all in any moment. And it is right that you see it through–that you are amazed, then curious, then belligerent, then heartbroken, then numb. You have the right to all of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES