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.
TA-NEHISI COATESBetter you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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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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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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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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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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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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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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Lot of folks like to mock dumb history, and pretend it’s just a few idiots. Isn’t. It’s the country.
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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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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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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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They’re right there waiting for it. A community of people who’ve been denied wealth, denied wealth-building opportunities, are right there. And the banks went right after them.
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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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