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.
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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[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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To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good.
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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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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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With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
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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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Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.
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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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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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In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
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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’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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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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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 COATES