Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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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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And I think that’s reflected in the fact that, when we have problems that really are problems of employment, that are really problems of mental health, that are really problems of drugs, our answer is the police.
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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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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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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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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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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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When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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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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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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