Part of that is ordinary African-Americans, you come out of your house and you see the conditions in your neighborhood and you see, folks in your neighborhood doing certain things that, are irresponsible.
TA-NEHISI COATESWhat 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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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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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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Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
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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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I don’t know how you bridge that contradiction, but I felt that Barack Obama was sincere. It didn’t feel like a line to me.
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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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Racism is, among other things.
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The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple.
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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.
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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 .
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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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[Donald Trump] went on to, you know, otherize Muslims, otherize Latinos, otherize women, that he built out from that. And it can be true that a unique, you know, individual like Barack Obama can succeed in spite of that and still be the case that that force is quite, quite strong.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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.
TA-NEHISI COATES