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 COATESAn 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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My mom used to tell me, I can’t use this phrase on the radio – but basically don’t be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
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What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices-more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe.
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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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I am not asking you as a white person to see yourself as an enslaver.
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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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Racism is, among other things.
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Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free.
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If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.
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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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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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The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
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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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What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal.
TA-NEHISI COATES