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
When I see the Confederate flag, I see the attempt to raise an empire in slavery. It really, really is that simple.… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“For Americans, the hardest part of paying reparations would not be the outlay of money. It would be acknowledging that their most… — 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
There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about modern French identity and… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“It is to point out that at this late hour, the totems of the empire of slavery—chief among them, its flag—still enjoy… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Here we find the roots of American wealth and democracy—in the for-profit destruction of the most important asset available to any people,… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“But while the people advocating reparations have changed over time, the response from the country has remained virtually the same. “They have… — Ta-Nehisi Coates Copy Share Image
“Enslavement was not merely the antiseptic borrowing of labor -- it is not so easy to get a human being to commit… — 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
“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
“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
