In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
TA-NEHISI COATESI 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.
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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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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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Racism is, among other things.
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And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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I’m asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.
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I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
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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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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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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 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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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES