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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
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" If your response to the first black president is to say they weren't born in this country... you might be a white supremacist. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black
White
Country
" 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
" 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
" Breitbart media is named after the same gentleman who basically framed Shirley Sherrod during the Obama administration. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
After
Gentleman
Media
" In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I was a huge Spider-Man fan, and, to large degree, I remain one. It's literature for me; it's art. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Me
Art
Imagine
" When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Worth It
Project
Worth
" The casualties in the Civil War amount to more than all other wars - all other American wars combined. More people died in that war than World War II, World War I, Vietnam, etc. And that was a war for white supremacy. It was a war to erect a state in which the basis of it was the enslavement of black people. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
World
American
Black
" The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged, too - the mind is damaged, too. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mind
Body
People
" The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Happen
Than
Country
" I was about 13 or 14 when I heard Malcolm X's speech 'Message to the Grass Roots.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Grass
Heard
Message
" 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
" There's a long tradition of black folks pleading with white people. It's a tradition that emerges from political necessity, so I get it; I'm just not very interested in it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
White
Black
Long
" 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
" 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
" 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
" There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Kind
World
Side
" The thing people have to remember is there's nothing natural about racism as it exists in America. I mean, we know this historically. We can look at 1619, when Africans first came here, and how early African slaves intermixed pretty indiscriminately with indentured white servants. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
America
Racism
Remember
" Rates of black poverty have decreased. Black teen-pregnancy rates are at record lows - and the gap between black and white teen-pregnancy rates has shrunk significantly. But such progress rests on a shaky foundation, and fault lines are everywhere. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black And White
White
Progress
" 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
" 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
" My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
World
Mission
Find
" There is some group of Americans who are really, really curious to understand how we ended up at this point, where every week it seems like you can turn on your TV and see some sort of abuse being heaped on black people. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Black
Week
People
" I've seen, and liked, 'Insecure' and 'Atlanta.' "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Atlanta
Liked
Seen
" It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fact
Quickness
Said
" 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
" Donald Trump did not appear by magic. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Magic
Appear
Did
" I think human societies tend to be problematic. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I Think
Think
Societies
" White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
History
White
Very
" Black people have been fighting for basic citizenship rights since the inception of the country. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Citizenship
Fighting
People
" In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Heritage
Black
Destroy