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 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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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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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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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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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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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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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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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.
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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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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
TA-NEHISI COATES