To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good. To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“For that more ennobling narrative, as for much of American history, the fact of black people is a problem.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Well into the 20th century, black people spoke of their flight from Mississippi in much the same manner as their runagate ancestors… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It's the weight on our shoulders. That is what's actually… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Black people are pledging their fealty to the state, and yet they aren't getting the same return. This is theft. It's systemized. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Black people have been fighting for basic citizenship rights since the inception of the country. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old.… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of exploitation and one of plunder. This is… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars - all other American wars combined. More people died… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I'm not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton's neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Redlining went beyond FHA-backed loans and spread to the entire mortgage industry, which was already rife with racism, excluding black people from… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I love living around black people. Home is home. We suffer under racism and the physical deprivations that come with that, but… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Obama was born into a country where laws barring his very conception—let alone his ascendancy to the presidency—had long stood in force.… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“For realists, the true story of the Civil War illuminates the problem of ostensibly sober-minded compromise with powerful, and intractable, evil. For… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Terrorism carried the day. Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. The dream of Reconstruction died. For the next century, political… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“If women, as a gender, must suffer the constant evaluations and denigrations of men, black women must suffer that, plus a broad… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Black people are not the descendants of kings. We are—and I say this with big pride—the progeny of slaves. If there’s any… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“And now the lies of the Civil War and the lies of these post-racial years began to resonate with each other, and… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“These efforts curtailed the ability of black people to buy better housing, to move to better neighborhoods, and to build wealth. Also,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“There is a notion out there that black people enjoy the Sisyphean struggle against racism. In fact, most of us live for… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Still later, I read Ira Katznelson’s history of discrimination, When Affirmative Action Was White, which argued that similar exclusions applied to other… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“I was not always a believer in reparations. I’d read TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson’s work on the subject in the late ’90s,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman, whose mind is active as your own,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains—whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.… — 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
“The FHA had adopted a system of maps that rated neighborhoods according to their perceived stability. On the maps, green areas, rated… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Every February, my classmates and I were herded into assemblies for a ritual review of the Civil Rights Movement. Our teachers urged… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Between 1882 and 1968, more black people were lynched in MIssissippi than in any other state.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
With George Bush's policies, I could make an argument for how they affect black people in a negative way. You know what… — 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
“There is a notion out there that black people enjoy the Sisyphean struggle against racism. In fact, most of us live for… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
As a writer, I was shaped by a desire to write for black people. That things were not being represented. That was… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
There is some group of Americans who are really, really curious to understand how we ended up at this point, where every… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“From the 1930s through the 1960s, black people across the country were largely cut out of the legitimate home-mortgage market through means… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 if you were black and looked… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mostly they will receive pensions. And destruction is merely the superlative form of a dominion… — 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
