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" I don't attempt to make people uncomfortable; I think that my standards in terms of art and journalism always have necessitated my discomfort. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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" I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 if you were black and looked back to your ancestors and saw nothing but slaves all the way back to 1619. Look forward another 50 or 60 years and saw nothing but slaves. "

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" Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected. "

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" I was 24 when Samori was born. His mom was 23. "

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" I guess I'd be put in the ID politics camp. But there is really nothing in the world-view of, say, Bernie Sanders I actually disagree with. I'd like a guaranteed income, single-payer health care, a stronger safety net, etc. The problem is the temptation to paper over historically fraught issues to achieve that is tempting. "

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" I think the body is the ultimate thing. The soul and mind are part of the body. I don't think there is anything outside of that. Your physical self is who you are. Some people feel that that is reductionist, but I don't think it is. It's just true. "

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" I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it. "

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" You had eight years before President Trump, a situation where the opposition party basically ran in opposition to the president on a platform of thinly based racism. That doesn't mean that the politicians themselves were outright racist, but when charges of birtherism came up, no one repudiated it. "

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" If your response to the first black president is to say they weren't born in this country... you might be a white supremacist. "

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" In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. "

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" If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America. "

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" The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people. "

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" When you know that people know who you are, you are always working - and not the work you want to do. You are sort of performing, because you know they are looking - or at least glancing - at you. "

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" I'm a writer. My job is to speak what - that which I think is true. If that bridges the gap, that's good. If it doesn't, that's too bad. "

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" There is some group of Americans who are really, really curious to understand how we ended up at this point, where every week it seems like you can turn on your TV and see some sort of abuse being heaped on black people. "

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" Comic books have a long, fraught history with sexism. "

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" There was no United States before slavery. I am sure somebody can make some sort of argument about modern French identity and slavery and North Africa, but there simply is no American history before black people. "

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" For me, my writing benefits from my experience. "

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" My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission. "

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" I think human societies tend to be problematic. "

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" The essential relationship across American history between black people and white people is one of exploitation and one of plunder. This is not, you know, necessarily about, you know, whether you're a good person or not or whether you see black people, you know, on the street, and you're willing to shake their hands and be polite. "

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" Throughout his eight years in office, Barack Obama endured a campaign of illegitimacy waged either by pluralities or majorities of the Republican party. Donald Trump rooted his candidacy in that campaign. It's fairly obvious. "

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" Black people have been fighting for basic citizenship rights since the inception of the country. "

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" Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount. "

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" My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition. "

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" It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind. "

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" The two endorsements I'm most proud of come from Isabel Wilkerson and Toni Morrison. The latter is the greatest American fiction writer of our time, and the former is on her way to being the greatest American nonfiction writer of our time. "

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" Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway. "

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" You don't actually have control of the position people want you to be in. If they say, 'You king of the blacks,' you're king of the blacks - whether you like it or not. "

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