If your response to the first black president is to say they weren't born in this country... you might be a white… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Some of us make it out. But the game is played with loaded dice. I wish I had known more, and I… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Slavery, Jim Crow, segregation: These bonded white people into a broad aristocracy united by the salient fact of unblackness.” — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
If I have to jump six feet to get the same thing that you have to jump two feet for - that's… — 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
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others... — 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
One of the things we tell ourselves as African-Americans is if we work hard, play by the rules, we do start back… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
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
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
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
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
“It struck me that perhaps the defining feature of being drafted into the black race was the inescapable robbery of time, because… — 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
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
You had eight years before President Trump, a situation where the opposition party basically ran in opposition to the president on a… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Segregations, by which I mean people living in a certain area, was a planned system. It was made that way. And what… — 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
“In those days I imagined racism as a tumor that could be isolated and removed from the body of America, not as… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Pointing to citizens who voted for both Obama and Trump does not disprove racism; it evinces it. To secure the White House,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The weakness in the case for integration was that it ultimately rested on a critical mass of white people playing along, either… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Liberals today mostly view racism not as an active, distinct evil but as a relative of white poverty and inequality. They ignore… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“The tightly intertwined stories of the white working class and black Americans go back to the prehistory of the United States—and the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“There's a liberal story that limited opportunities, and barriers, lead to employment problems and criminal records, but then there's another story that… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“One strain of African American thought holds that it is a violent black recklessness—the black gangster, the black rioter—that strikes the ultimate… — 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
“The focus on one sector of Trump voters—the white working class—is puzzling, given the breadth of his white coalition. Indeed, there is… — 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
“When it comes to the Civil War, all of our popular understanding, our popular history and culture, our great films, the subtext… — 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
Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage. — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers. — 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
We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that contradicts that. — 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
