black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Answer Employment Fact Health Poice Problem Really Reflect
When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Built Communities Country Giving Make Opportunity People Plunder Policy Sure Wealth
They’re right there waiting for it. A community of people who’ve been denied wealth, denied wealth-building opportunities, are right there. And the banks went right after them.
TA-NEHISI COATES

After Bank Community Denied Opportunities People Right Wait Wealth
These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Belive Day Field Pioneer Powerfully
When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Aggressor Calling Expose Halfway Itself Nonviolence Ruse Time War
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

Feel Heartbroken Know Moment Need Right Tell
Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Been Country Enslave Free Longer never People Year
The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Approach Blind Color Conscious Invective Moment Moral Policy Progressive Public Standard
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Bridge Contradiction Country Felt Optimism People Peron Sincere
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Country Equal Humdres Separate Slavery Two Year
Talk about class and hope no one notices.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Class Hope No Notice One Talk
The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Acquisition Best Communication Knowledge Other People Writing
To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Black Demand Enable Good Oppression People Prevent Twice White
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Democratizer Fact Great History Image Reconciling Self Yelling
And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Black Destroy Dispoortioante Necessitate Number Them
[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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Ability Frankly Gave Optimism People Thing Trust White

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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