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" My dad always associated information with liberation. He was very much in that Malcolm X tradition. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Much
Information
Tradition
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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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Look
World
Write
" 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
" I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black
Think
People
" I had no expectations of white people at all. "
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Had
People
White
" Comic books have a long, fraught history with sexism. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Comic
History
Long
" 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
" 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
Me
Writing
Want
" I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Grass
Heard
Message
" 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
" Donald Trump begins his political career in birtherism. That idea is connected to a very, very old notion that African-Americans are not citizens. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Political
Career
Connected
" When people hear the term 'political prisoner,' especially on the Left, it becomes a kind of abstraction. Folks are aware of injustice, and they're aware that there are folks in prison who are in prison, you know, largely because of their activism. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Injustice
Prison
People
" Fighting, I guess, was never the real reason I read comic books as a kid. The fighting was an important part, an integral part of it; I don't know I would've read it without it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Important
Fighting
Kid
" Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Me
Experience
Black
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Rights
Forgiveness
Church
" 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
" One can say Senator Sanders should have more explicit antiracist policy within his racial justice platform, not just more general stuff, and still cast a vote for Senator Sanders and still feel that Senator Sanders is the best option that we have in the race. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Vote
Race
Justice
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Safety
Politics
Problem
" I have never read 'To Kill A Mockingbird.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mockingbird
Read
Never
" The symbolic power of Barack Obama's presidency - that whiteness was no longer strong enough to prevent peons taking up residence in the castle - assaulted the most deeply rooted notions of white supremacy and instilled fear in its adherents and beneficiaries. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Power
Up
Fear
" The mainstream sort of presentation of the civil rights movement was not something that I directly inherited. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Presentation
Civil
Rights
" From last century's 'The Birth of a Nation' to this century's 'Gods and Generals,' Hollywood has likely done more than any other American institution to obstruct a truthful apprehension of the Civil War and, thus, modern America's very origins. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
American
War
Done
" I haven't checked, but I highly suspect that chickens evolved from an egg-laying ancestor, which would mean that there were, in fact, eggs before there were chickens. Genius. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Eggs
Were
Mean
" It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Vocabulary
Hip-Hop
Culture
" You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Facts
Know
Really
" 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
" I try to write in a way that makes people feel things. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Things
Write
Way
" 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
Me
" I had to learn to not be so hard. And I had a wife and, at that time, a partner when Samori was born, and for most of Samori's life, a partner, who, for whatever reason, did not have to learn that and was very tender and very, very soft with him. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Learn
Born
Partner
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Struggle
Children
Life
" I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Violence
Situation
Born