Black Quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates
““Black-on-black crime’ is jargon, violence to language, which vanishes the men who engineered the covenants, who fixed the loans, who planned the projects, who built the streets and sold red ink by the barrel. And this should not surprise us. The plunder of black life was drilled into this country in its infancy and reinforced across its history, so that plunder has become an heirloom, an intelligence, a sentience, a default setting to which, likely to the end of our days, we must invariably return.””
About This Quote
Source Speech: The Atlantic Interview, 2015
Systemic racism is portrayed as a cultural issue, obscuring the historical policies that created wealth gaps and ongoing oppression.
In simple terms: Racism is hidden behind language, not just individual actions.
Key Takeaway
Recognize structural causes, not just surface symptoms.
Themes
racism
history
policy
inequality
Mood
somber
critical
Type
analytical
political
When to use this quote
- urban planning
- housing policy
- education reform
- community activism
Key Concepts
structural violence
institutional racism
intergenerational trauma
Questions to Reflect On
- How do policies shape community outcomes?
- What can individuals do to challenge systemic bias?
A Different Perspective
The quote may overgeneralize all black experiences, ignoring agency.
![“[Grew up in Hawaii] that gave [Barack Obama] a kind of optimism, an ability to see things, you know, and frankly, an ability to trust, you know, in his fellow, you know, white countrymen in a way that I, for instance, you know, and the vast majority of black people I know never really could.” quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/feb/ta-nehisi-coates-733_ability_grew-up-in-hawaii-that-gave-barack-obama_75931.jpg)
![“[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 symbolism was in - and this sounds really, really small, but it's actually big for African-Americans - the symbolism was not in being an…” quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/5dc/ta-nehisi-coates-733_achievement_winning-the-white-house-was-an-achieveme_47651.jpg)
