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.
TA-NEHISI COATESI think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
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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.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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.
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The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
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Racism is, among other things.
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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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It was a week after Donald Trump had won. And initially he was still optimistic. He felt that things would be OK ultimately. And I have to tell you, this is the area where, you know, I see, you know, some degree of contradiction.
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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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Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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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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My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
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I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn’t mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it’s not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .
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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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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES