[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.
TA-NEHISI COATESIn particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth.
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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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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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.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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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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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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More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people.
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You know, the thing I always think about, you get up early in the morning to go to work and there’s some dude outside drinking and you come home and the same dude is outside drinking hanging on the corner. And then this engenders a level of anger I think and a level of shame.
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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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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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All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy.
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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
TA-NEHISI COATES