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
There's a long tradition of black folks pleading with white people. It's a tradition that emerges from political necessity, so I get… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“If there was one thing that South Carolina feared more than bad Negro government,” wrote Du Bois, “it was good Negro government.” — 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
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
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
There are plenty of African-Americans in this country - and I would say this goes right up to the White House -… — 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
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
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
“Indeed, in America there is a strange and powerful belief that if you stab a black person ten times, the bleeding stops… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Ideas like cosmic justice, collective hope, and national redemption had no meaning for me. The truth was in the everything that came… — 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 late as 1950, the National Association of Real Estate Boards’ code of ethics warned that “a Realtor should never be instrumental… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“There were distinct advantages to black atheism, to a disbelief in dreams and moral appeal. First, it removed the weight of believing… — 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
“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
“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
“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 “rising tide” theory rested on a notion of separate but equal class ladders. And so there was a class of black… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
You don't actually have control of the position people want you to be in. If they say, 'You king of the blacks,'… — 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
“White supremacy is a crime and a lie, but it's also a machine that generates meaning. This existential gift, as much as… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct… — 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
“But if you see black identity as you see southern identity, or Irish identity, or Italian identity—not as a separate trunk, but… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
Part of that is ordinary African-Americans, you come out of your house and you see the conditions in your neighborhood and you… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“But my experience in this world has been that the people who believe themselves to be white are obsessed with the politics… — 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
“The precise ancestry of a black drug dealer or cop killer is irrelevant. His blackness predicts and explains his crime. He reinforces… — 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
