The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
TA-NEHISI COATESAnd 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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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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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.
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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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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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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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That’s not an accident that Donald Trump didn’t begin with, say, trade or jobs or anything, that he actually began by otherizing the first African-American president of the United States.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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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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Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
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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 COATES