An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.
TA-NEHISI COATESIt was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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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 the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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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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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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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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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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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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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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
TA-NEHISI COATES