Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
TA-NEHISI COATESTalk about class and hope no one notices.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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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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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.
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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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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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What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.
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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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
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I mean, the president, you know, at one point when he was campaigning said I believe that Donald Trump was not qualified to run a 7-Eleven.
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And I think, like, there’s a crucial difference between being, you know, Joe Schmo in the neighborhood and being the head, you know, of the government that, you know, in many ways is largely responsible for those conditions in the first place.
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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 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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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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Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that’s a statement.
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