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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 Coates

[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Achievement Country House Symbolism Think Thinking White Winning
Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Better Bow Chaim Go Head Knuckle Tuck
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Actually Always Embarrassment Folk Future Really Small Sound Symbolism
Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Denying End Fact Heritage Mean Reparation Scarfing Talk
Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Back Giving Know might Opportunity Other Pay People Right Want
It was made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Exploiter Made People Some
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 COATES

Geometry Impossible Life Master One Shape Strange Suddenly World
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Certain Future Ignore Just Look Past Present Sin
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Country Feel Many People Person Police Skepticism Towards
The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Acquisition Best Communication Knowledge Other People Writing
[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Avoidance Conflict Empathy Hand Intellectual Maiden Self Serve
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 COATES

Brutality Confrontation Constant Country Fred Greatest Host Interrogation Myth Reward
The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Bully Corner Knowledge Men Rule World
Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Boundary Community Human Ironic Pleasurable Relationship Self Word
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 COATES

Feel Heartbroken Know Moment Need Right Tell
You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES

All Bad Get Good Part Person Too

Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.

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Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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