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.
TA-NEHISI COATESYou 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.
More Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes
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What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.
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The essence of American racism is disrespect.
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I think, as a writer, I’m in my own head.
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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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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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[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself.
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[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.
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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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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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The unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
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I want to be really, really clear about this. It doesn’t mean that everyone or even the majority of people who voted for Donald Trump are racist or white supremacists or anything like that. But what it means is that it’s not a mistake that Trump began his campaign with birthersism .
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The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully.
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I’m asking you as an American to see all of the freedoms that you enjoy and see how they are rooted in things that the country you belong to condoned or actively participated in the past.
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I think the sad fact is, there’s a long history in this country at looking at African-American as subhuman.
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All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy.
TA-NEHISI COATES