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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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 COATES

Biracial Country Know People Person Reading Say Some Sort Thinking Under White
The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Addresses Class Directly Effect Policy Progressive Approach Simple Supremacy White
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 COATES

Country Feel Many People Person Police Skepticism Towards
Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Area Ceratin Mean Opportunity People Planned Segregation System
I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn’t mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it’s not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .
TA-NEHISI COATES

Campaign Country Dumb Few Folk History Idiot Lot Mean Mistake Present White
What I am telling you is that you do not need to know to love, and it is right that you feel it all in any moment. And it is right that you see it through–that you are amazed, then curious, then belligerent, then heartbroken, then numb. You have the right to all of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Feel Heartbroken Know Moment Need Right Tell
When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Aggressor Calling Expose Halfway Itself Nonviolence Ruse Time War
Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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Back Giving Know might Opportunity Other Pay People Right Want
The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Another Group Human Join One Skepticism Sympathy Unlearn
[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Avoidance Conflict Empathy Hand Intellectual Maiden Self Serve
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Apart Black Deficit People Personal Responsibility Some
Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Better Bow Chaim Go Head Knuckle Tuck
Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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Demographics Percent Somebody Statement Upward Voting
To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.
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Eat never People Pledge Prevent Slice Stereotype Verify Watermelon White
These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann’s to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Belive Day Field Pioneer Powerfully
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Accident Actually Anything Begin Country First Job People Peron President Trade

Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.

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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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