[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 COATESAnd they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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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.
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Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history.
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You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.
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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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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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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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I’m asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.
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Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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I think the president [Barack Obama] adopted some of that same language, but took it into the White House.
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
TA-NEHISI COATES