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" 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

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" Donald Trump did not appear by magic. "

" Abraham Lincoln was killed by the forces of white supremacy. "

" I am always surprised people are surprised that people haven't read things. "

" The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people. "

" I don't completely understand why people in Aspen want to hear what I have to say. "

" As an African-American, we stand on the shoulders of people who fought despite not seeing victories in their lifetime or even in their children's lifetime or even in their grandchildren's lifetime. So fatalism isn't really an option. "

" I love America the way I love my family - I was born into it. And there's no escape out of it. "

" 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. "

" We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that contradicts that. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America. "

" It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power. "

" There isn't a dude outside my dad who had greater influence on my life. "

" 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. "

" The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in. "

" Like a lot of people, I'm very, very concerned about Senator Clinton's record. I'm very, very concerned about where her positions were in the 1990s, when we had some of the most disgusting legislation in terms of our criminal justice, really, in this country's history. "

" You may not be able to change the course of government, but you can achieve some peace. And books were the path to that. I grew up in a house where books were everywhere. "

" 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. "

" My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that was exactly what was happening all around us. "

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Black

" There are African-American families around this country - a large, large number of African-American families - that operate out of complete fear that their kids are going to be taken from them and will do anything to prevent that. "

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

" I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate. "

" Eddie Conway is central to my first memories. My parents used to take me to, when it was open, the Baltimore city penitentiary to see Eddie Conway - I was talking to my dad about this recently - from the time I might have been one or two years old. I mean, literally, my first memories are of black men in jail, specifically of Eddie Conway. "

" 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. "

" I've seen, and liked, 'Insecure' and 'Atlanta.' "

" I feel like my job is to look at the world and to report what I see, to write what I see as honestly and directly as I can. I don't want to cut it or make it easy, but be as direct as I can. "

" There's no way to understand housing as it exists today without federal policy. "

" I constantly write about my safety walking to and from school, and then I would come home at night, and I would cut on the TV, and I would watch a show like 'The Wonder Years,' or I would watch, you know, some other show like 'Family Ties.' "