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.
TA-NEHISI COATESI am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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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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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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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices-more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe.
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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.
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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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Lot of folks like to mock dumb history, and pretend it’s just a few idiots. Isn’t. It’s the country.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
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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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Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American.
TA-NEHISI COATES