black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Color Come Concentration Country Disadvantage Injured Isolation Robbed Segregation
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

Apart Black Deficit People Personal Responsibility Some
Often ironic and self-deprecating – are always spoken that take on other meanings when uttered by others.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Always Deprecating Meaning Often Other Self Spoken Take
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Geometry Impossible Life Master One Shape Strange Suddenly World
I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Against Ay Country Ninty Other Over Percent Person President Way
[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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Ability Frankly Gave Optimism People Thing Trust White
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Bridge Contradiction Country Felt Optimism People Peron Sincere
Part of that is ordinary African-Americans, you come out of your house and you see the conditions in your neighborhood and you see, folks in your neighborhood doing certain things that, are irresponsible.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Condition Drinking Folk Home House Morning Neighbourhood Ordinary Country Part See
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

After Believe Country Optimistic People Person President Running Won
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Between Black Border Boy Crack Education Era Eye Great Height Hydra Instructor Murder Pitch Pregnancy Prison Teenage
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Feel Heartbroken Know Moment Need Right Tell
Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?
TA-NEHISI COATES

Country Jewish People Peron Race Thriftier
You don’t just get the good part. You get the bad part, too. You get all of it.
TA-NEHISI COATES

All Bad Get Good Part Person Too
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Country Equal Humdres Separate Slavery Two Year
And they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Black Destroy Dispoortioante Necessitate Number Them
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.
TA-NEHISI COATES

Biracial Country Know People Person Reading Say Some Sort Thinking Under White

I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes