[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.
TA-NEHISI COATESTwo hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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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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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
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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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These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
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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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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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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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All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy.
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You know, the thing I always think about, you get up early in the morning to go to work and there’s some dude outside drinking and you come home and the same dude is outside drinking hanging on the corner. And then this engenders a level of anger I think and a level of shame.
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You know, it felt like him reverting back to what was in his bones and that’s, you know, optimism and a deep belief in, you know, American institutions and the American people.
TA-NEHISI COATES