Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
TA-NEHISI COATESI did not know then that this is what life is – just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you’re swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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.
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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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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 am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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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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You know, it felt like him reverting back to what was in his bones and that’s, you know, optimism and a deep belief in, you know, American institutions and the American people.
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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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