This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
TA-NEHISI COATESThe progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American.
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Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
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I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.
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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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[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.
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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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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 made that way. And what you have is a system in which people are there to be exploited.
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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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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
TA-NEHISI COATES