An unsegregated America might see poverty, and all its effects, spread across the country with no particular bias toward skin color. Instead, the concentration of poverty has been paired with a concentration of melanin.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhat I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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[E]mpathy – not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance – is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
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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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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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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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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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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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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
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You know, it felt like him reverting back to what was in his bones and that’s, you know, optimism and a deep belief in, you know, American institutions and the American people.
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I did not know then that this is what life is – just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you’re swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.
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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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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