Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
TA-NEHISI COATES[Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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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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I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES -
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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And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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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.
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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 essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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.
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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.
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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
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/grey-barack-obama-grew-up-in-hawaii-far-far-r.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/blue-barack-obama-grew-up-in-hawaii-far-far-r.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/red-barack-obama-grew-up-in-hawaii-far-far-r.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/brown-barack-obama-grew-up-in-hawaii-far-far-r.jpg)
![Ta-Nehisi Coates Quote - [Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/white-barack-obama-grew-up-in-hawaii-far-far-r.jpg)

