I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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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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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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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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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.
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And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
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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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Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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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.
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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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