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" I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Grass
Heard
Message
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" You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Facts
Know
Really
" There are plenty of African-Americans in this country - and I would say this goes right up to the White House - who are not by any means poor, but are very much afflicted by white supremacy. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
White
House
Say
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Only
Writing
Work
" 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
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
History
I Am
Identity
" I've seen, and liked, 'Insecure' and 'Atlanta.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Atlanta
Liked
Seen
" I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Violence
Situation
Born
" 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
" The African-American tradition, in the main, is very, very church-based, very, very Christian. It accepts, you know, certain narratives about the world. I didn't really have that present in my house. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tradition
Know
World
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Two
Racism
Jump
" I'm not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton's neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call privilege and about why it's there. Black people in this country have no choice but to be curious. We have to know. I wish folks would do a little bit more investigation. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Wish
Black
Choice
" If I wrote a Jewish superhero, he'd have awesome time-traveling powers. I'd call him Doctorow. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Call
Superhero
Jewish
" I am always surprised people are surprised that people haven't read things. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I Am
Always
Things
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Party
Office
Donald Trump
" 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
" Every writer dreams of having the ability to hold forth for 8,000 words and pull all these different forms together: history, reportage, journalism. That was all I really wanted, and 'The Atlantic' was my first high-profile opportunity. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Together
Dreams
History
" We look at young black kids with a scowl on their face, walking a certain way down the block with their sweatpants dangling, however, with their hoodies on. And folks think that this is a show of power or a show of force. But I know, because I've been among those kids, it ultimately is fear. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Think
Walking
Black
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Giving
Doing
Appreciate
" In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Heritage
Black
Destroy
" The ties between the Obama White House and the hip-hop community are genuine. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Obama
White
Community
" I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Yourself
Understand
Soul
" When I see Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk, it's only a picture. My imagination has to do some of the work there, to impute feeling and everything. We're talking about something that's so surreal, it's just not possible within the world as we know it. So that requires a form that is not so literal. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
World
Imagination
Know
" To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black
Before
Naked
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Want
You
Say
" The Ku Klux Klan is the most profligate domestic terrorist organization in this country's history. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Most
Organization
Country
" When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
Dead
100 Years
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
See
Great
Winter
" People know things and have a remarkable capacity to act in their individual immediate interests all the time. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Individual
Things
Time
" It's kind of selfish to say that you're only going to fight for a victory that you will live to see. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
You
Selfish
Fight
" 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