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Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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.
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Apart Black Deficit People Personal Responsibility Some
All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy.
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Black Country Legacy Need Numbers Offer Power State Understand Weight Year
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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Color Concentrate Country Effect Instead Melanin Paired Poverty Spreadma Cross
With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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Color Come Concentration Country Disadvantage Injured Isolation Robbed Segregation
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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Biracial Country Know People Person Reading Say Some Sort Thinking Under White
When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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Aggressor Calling Expose Halfway Itself Nonviolence Ruse Time War
The symbolism was in – and this sounds really, really small, but it’s actually big for African-Americans – the symbolism was not in being an embarrassment, but to being a figure that folks were actually proud of.
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Actually Always Embarrassment Folk Future Really Small Sound Symbolism
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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Geometry Impossible Life Master One Shape Strange Suddenly World
Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system.
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Area Ceratin Mean Opportunity People Planned Segregation System
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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Feel Heartbroken Know Moment Need Right Tell
I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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Ask Country Enslaver Past Person White Yourself
Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
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Boundary Community Human Ironic Pleasurable Relationship Self Word
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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Back Belief Bone Country Deep Institution Know Optimistic People Revert
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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Black Country Grandparent Mother People Person President Raise Told Two White
Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
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Always Deprecating Meaning Often Other Self Spoken Take
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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Campaign Country Dumb Few Folk History Idiot Lot Mean Mistake Present White
[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.
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Ability Frankly Gave Optimism People Thing Trust White
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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Actively Ask Belong Country Freedom Long Participate Rooted
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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Always Between Condition Difference First Government Head Many Neighbourhood Place Responsible Schmo Way
Just because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American.
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Become Celebrate Celebration Country Day July
Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.
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Denying End Fact Heritage Mean Reparation Scarfing Talk
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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Black Blunder Country Exclusive Liberty People Person Personality Plunder President Racist Specific
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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Built Communities Country Giving Make Opportunity People Plunder Policy Sure Wealth
[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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Achievement Country House Symbolism Think Thinking White Winning
Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
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Back Giving Know might Opportunity Other Pay People Right Want
What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
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Lead National Reckoning Renewal Spiritual Talk
Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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Better Bow Chaim Go Head Knuckle Tuck

Giving opportunities to other people, it’s only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.

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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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