Ta-Nehisi Coates on president
Ta-Nehisi Coates77 quotes“Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.”
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More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates I think there’s a sort of, you know, very thin way of reading this that says, well, Barack Obama is biracial thus that gives him some understanding of both white America and black America, but that’s not really it.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates Talk about class and hope no one notices.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates 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 CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates That’s not an accident that Donald Trump didn’t begin with, say, trade or jobs or anything, that he actually began by otherizing the first African-American president of the United States.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates Part of that is ordinary African-Americans, you come out of your house and you see the conditions in your neighborhood and you see, folks in your neighborhood doing certain things that, are irresponsible.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates 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.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates
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More on president
I mean, the president, you know, at one point when he was campaigning said I believe that Donald Trump was not qualified to run a 7-Eleven.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates People tend to judge presidents on how the economy performs, and yet we don’t expect them to have the power to do much about it. Or we don’t want them to exercise that power, if they were to have it.
Barbara EhrenreichBarbara Ehrenreich Issues of foreign policy have a place in every election for President.
Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates If you are the wife of a governor or the wife of a vice president, I think you can be prepared for it.
Barbara BushBarbara Bush We elected a President, not a Pope.
Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesTa-Nehisi Coates If I can make a generalization, men get into politics because, from the time they’re little boys, they’ve been wanting to be President.
Barbara BoxerBarbara Boxer