I 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.
TA-NEHISI COATESRacism is, among other things.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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[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.
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[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.
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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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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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It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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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.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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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.
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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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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
TA-NEHISI COATES