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.
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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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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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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[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
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Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
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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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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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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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[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.
TA-NEHISI COATES






