I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
It is, I think, the very chaos of America that allowed me to prosper. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I think there's a sort of, you know, very thin way of reading this that says, well, Barack Obama is biracial thus… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
From last century's 'The Birth of a Nation' to this century's 'Gods and Generals,' Hollywood has likely done more than any other… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself that you… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
If, to the end of its existence, America harbors white supremacy, I don't know how remarkable that would be. France has dealt… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America. More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
With segregation, with the isolation of the injured and the robbed, comes the concentration of disadvantage. An unsegregated America might see poverty,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The thing people have to remember is there's nothing natural about racism as it exists in America. I mean, we know this… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Many, many people of the Revolutionary generation, the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, understood that slavery was somehow in contradiction… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“An America that asks what it owes its most vulnerable citizens is improved and humane. An America that looks away is ignoring… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I don't know that white people need to be 'allies' so much as understand that any black struggle in America is ultimately… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I was a black boy at the height of the crack era, which meant that my instructors pitched education as the border… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“To Trump whiteness is neither notional nor symbolic but is the very core of his power. In this, Trump is not singular. But whereas… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
“The focus on one sector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is a kind… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
What I am telling you is that you do not need to know to love, and it is right that you feel it all… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
I think 'Dear White People,' the show, is a tremendous artistic achievement. It's always hinting that there is something beyond the pleading and wokeness,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
[Winning the White House was an achievement], but as an African-American, [Barack Obama], I think the symbolism is in how he conducted himself. The… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
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… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
Like a lot of people, I'm very, very concerned about Senator Clinton's record. I'm very, very concerned about where her positions were in the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
“I drove away, as always, thinking of you. I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves.… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
The mainstream sort of presentation of the civil rights movement was not something that I directly inherited. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
“I sensed the schools were hiding something, drugging us with false morality so that we would not see, so that we did not ask:… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
You don't make a case for reparations thinking, 'Oh yeah, people are gonna love this.' I didn't see that coming. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
“And I know that there are black boys and black girls out there lost in a Bermuda triangle of the mind or stranded in… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share
