[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
TA-NEHISI COATESThe greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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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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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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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And I think that’s reflected in the fact that, when we have problems that really are problems of employment, that are really problems of mental health, that are really problems of drugs, our answer is the police.
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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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Talk about class and hope no one notices.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
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