I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
TA-NEHISI COATESAnd 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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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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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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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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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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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
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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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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
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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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[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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These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
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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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