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" My chief identity, to my mind, was not 'writer' but 'college dropout.' "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

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" 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. "

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" My job is to look out on that world that I write about and be as honest as I possibly can about that world. If that's optimistic and uplifting, OK. If it's not, OK. "

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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 never expected my writing to become as popular as it did. "

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" Well into the 20th century, black people spoke of their flight from Mississippi in much the same manner as their runagate ancestors had. "

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

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" I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.' "

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" 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. "

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" Life is always a problem. The fact that I'm on the radio saying that I don't necessarily see hope does not relieve people, does not relieve my son, does not relieve children, of the responsibility to struggle. "

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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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" Donald Trump did not appear by magic. "

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" I think human societies tend to be problematic. "

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" We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory. "

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" I feel some need to represent where I'm from. But ultimately, I think my only real responsibility is to - as much as possible - interrogate my own truths. This is to say not merely writing what I think is true, but using the writing to turn that alleged truth over and over, to stress-test it, in the aim of producing something readable. "

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" 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. "

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" It's kind of selfish to say that you're only going to fight for a victory that you will live to see. "

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" People know things and have a remarkable capacity to act in their individual immediate interests all the time. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" 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. "

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" When you read a comic book, there's a space between what's happening on the panel and what you have to literally see in your mind. That's not true of movies, where you see everything. "

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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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" Abraham Lincoln is singular. Abraham Lincoln, before he was killed, stood up and, you know, for the first time from any sitting president, stood for the right for suffrage for African-American men who had served in the Civil War. And that's a limited suffrage, but it was quite radical at the time. "

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" White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers. "

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" With George Bush's policies, I could make an argument for how they affect black people in a negative way. You know what I mean? But I wouldn't argue that he's a white supremacist. "

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" Forgiveness is a big part of - especially post-civil rights movement - is a big part of African-American Christianity, and I wasn't raised within the Christian church; I wasn't raised within any church. "

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" When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years. "

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" You can't tolerate anybody attempting to threaten or intimidate your body. You must respond with force. "

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" Black people are pledging their fealty to the state, and yet they aren't getting the same return. This is theft. It's systemized. "

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