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.
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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This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.
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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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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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It was a week after Donald Trump had won. And initially he was still optimistic. He felt that things would be OK ultimately. And I have to tell you, this is the area where, you know, I see, you know, some degree of contradiction.
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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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[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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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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When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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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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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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Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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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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