In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
TA-NEHISI COATESI think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
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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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Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American.
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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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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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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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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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What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It’s the weight on our shoulders. That is what’s actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.
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An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
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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.
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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES