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" I just think that if one is going to preach nonviolence and one is going to advocate for nonviolence, one's standard should be consistent. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Just
Think
Advocate
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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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
American
White
You
" I started writing regularly for 'The Atlantic' roughly around the time that Barack Obama got inaugurated. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Writing
Started
Got
" I feel sorry for people who only know comic books through movies. I really do. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Sorry
People
Movies
" White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
History
White
Very
" I was 24 when Samori was born. His mom was 23. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mom
His
Born
" I didn't start off as a journalist; I started off as a poet. My ambition was to practise poetry. Then I found journalism, but that other voice never fled from me. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Start
Ambition
Me
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Soul
Think
Body
" If, to the end of its existence, America harbors white supremacy, I don't know how remarkable that would be. France has dealt with anti-Semitism since its inception. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
White
America
Existence
" Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing 'mere' about symbols. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Critics
Nothing
Symbols
" You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Facts
Know
Really
" 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
Journalism
Art
Always
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Want
Work
You
" I get really, really concerned when I see somebody, taking $600,000 in speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, will not release what they're actually saying. That's concerning. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Saying
Release
I See
" I'm not going to break up my family, not for a book. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Going
Book
Break
" 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
See
You
People
" If I wrote a Jewish superhero, he'd have awesome time-traveling powers. I'd call him Doctorow. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call
Superhero
Jewish
" It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mind
Always
View
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Situation
You
Party
" I don't know that white people need to be 'allies' so much as understand that any black struggle in America is ultimately a struggle for the large country. 'Ally' presumes a kind of distance that I am not sure exists. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I Am
People
Black
" Long view of history shows evil triumphing more often than we'd like to admit. That's just how it is. I don't despair too much about dying, either. It's just a fact of being human. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
View
Admit
Dying
" Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hip-Hop
Outside
Wisdom
" I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Expected
Did
Become
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
War
Slavery
" People sort of went crazy when 'BTWAM' came out. I'm happy a bunch of people read it. I'm happy it touched so many people. I'm less happy that it became an object for certain folks or was discussed that way. I'm less happy that journalists started scrolling through my kid's Instagram account. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Started
Way
Crazy
" The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself that you can't have in America without enslavement, without Jim Crow, terrorism, everything that came after that. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You
Terrorism
Road
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Love
Racism
People
" 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
Me
Over
Process
" I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Escape
Born
Love
" 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
Go
Learn
" There isn't a dude outside my dad who had greater influence on my life. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
My Life
Dude
Influence