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 COATESAny time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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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I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
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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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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.
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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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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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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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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Racism is, among other things.
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The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
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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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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