The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
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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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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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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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.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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Part of that is ordinary African-Americans, you come out of your house and you see the conditions in your neighborhood and you see, folks in your neighborhood doing certain things that, are irresponsible.
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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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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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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[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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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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You know, it felt like him reverting back to what was in his bones and that’s, you know, optimism and a deep belief in, you know, American institutions and the American people.
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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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