[Barack Obama] grew up in Hawaii, far, far removed from the most, you know, sort of violent, you know, tendencies of Jim Crow and segregation. He wasn’t directly exposed to that. He was untraumatized.
TA-NEHISI COATESJust because you came here in 1880, 1950, whenever, you became an American. You get to celebrate July 4th like every other American.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
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Humans also tend to find community to be pleasurable, and within the boundaries of community relationships, words.
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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.
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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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I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border between those who would prosper in America, and those who would be fed to the great hydra of prison, teenage pregnancy and murder.
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Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America.
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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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You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
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Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
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Racism is, among other things.
TA-NEHISI COATES