The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
TA-NEHISI COATESThis 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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It was a week after Donald Trump had won. And initially he was still optimistic. He felt that things would be OK ultimately. And I have to tell you, this is the area where, you know, I see, you know, some degree of contradiction.
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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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Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
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I mean, the president, you know, at one point when he was campaigning said I believe that Donald Trump was not qualified to run a 7-Eleven.
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What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
TA-NEHISI COATES