In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
TA-NEHISI COATES[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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Racism is, among other things.
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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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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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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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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.
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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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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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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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Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
TA-NEHISI COATES