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" I feel like my job is to look at the world and to report what I see, to write what I see as honestly and directly as I can. I don't want to cut it or make it easy, but be as direct as I can. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Easy

World

Job

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" American myths have never been colorless. "

" The only people who usually have input on my writing are my wife and my editor. I'm not in conversation with anyone except the people I report on and the people I work with. "

" The process of getting conscious, for me, was a very, very uncomfortable, disturbing, and sometimes physically painful process. And so that's the standard to which I write, because it was what I've experienced over my time. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Over

Process

" Amiri Baraka went to Howard. Lucille Clifton went to Howard. Ossie Davis went to Howard. And I was aware of that when I was there. Charles Drew went to Howard. Thurgood Marshall went to the law school. Being aware of that and having all of that brought to bear, again, it's one of those things that I can't really separate from my career as a writer. "

" We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn't actually come from the criminal justice system. "

" If I have to jump six feet to get the same thing that you have to jump two feet for - that's how racism works. "

" I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right,' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Writing

Want

" You may not be able to change the course of government, but you can achieve some peace. And books were the path to that. I grew up in a house where books were everywhere. "

" I think riots happen when communities are under pressure for long periods of time. That's not a mistake. "

" You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do. "

" If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs. "

" One of the things that's really, really present in 'Between the World and Me' is, I am in some ways outside of the African-American tradition. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Tradition

Present

" People review my comic books. People review every article I write - 'The Atlantic' even publishes them. A great deal of the critique of 'Between the World and Me' was from a feminist perspective. bell hooks pushed back, among others. Some of that has value. Some of it does not. I try my best to separate the wheat from the chaff. "

" 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. "

" Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi. "

" It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Place

People

" I think at places like 'Slate' or the magazine where I work, there was a really poor record of hiring African-American writers. It was really that simple. And I think with the proliferation of the Internet and Internet media, it has been a little harder to maintain that gatekeeper position. "

" I love living around black people. Home is home. We suffer under racism and the physical deprivations that come with that, but beneath that, we form cultures and traditions that are beautiful. "

" Kaepernick's protest has been very successful. I really appreciate the fact that he's been giving away money to organisations; he pledged to give away a million dollars, and he's been doing it. "

" I think human societies tend to be problematic. "

" We had particular policies in this country that resulted in the larger share of poverty that we have in African-American communities. "

" The FHA literally drew up the redlining map and then basically distributed - I'm sorry, the Home Owners' Loan Corporation actually did it, and then distributed to banks who used that as policy to determine how they would lend and who they would lend to. The racism in the system was pervasive and total. "

" Donald Trump did not appear by magic. "

" I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate. "

" Typically, there's this perspective among writers - and black writers: there's this idea that there is one person - and maybe beyond writers - among blacks, there is always one person who everyone should go to learn about all things black. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Black

Learn

" I wasn't the biggest Captain America fan, but increasingly, I see him as a great character. Winter Soldier really got into what it meant to actually represent America. "

" Many, many people of the Revolutionary generation, the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, understood that slavery was somehow in contradiction to what America was saying it was. And many of those folks also, at the very least, gave land to African Americans when they were liberated. "

" I enjoy the challenge of trying to say things beautifully. The message is secondary in that sense. Obviously, I have something that I want to say that's very, very important to me - but the process of actually crafting it is essential. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Process

Enjoy

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

" If Obama's enormous symbolic power draws primarily from being the country's first black president, it also draws from his membership in hip-hop's foundational generation. "