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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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Got
Freedom
Government
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" 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
" We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that contradicts that. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Racism
Past
Political
" 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
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" I think the body is the ultimate thing. The soul and mind are part of the body. I don't think there is anything outside of that. Your physical self is who you are. Some people feel that that is reductionist, but I don't think it is. It's just true. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Soul
Think
Body
" The mainstream sort of presentation of the civil rights movement was not something that I directly inherited. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Presentation
Civil
Rights
" 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
" There's no way to understand housing as it exists today without federal policy. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Way
Policy
Understand
" 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
" 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
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Going
Will
Fear
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
Grandchildren
Stand
" 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 attempt to make people uncomfortable; I think that my standards in terms of art and journalism always have necessitated my discomfort. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Journalism
Art
Always
" The Ku Klux Klan is the most profligate domestic terrorist organization in this country's history. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Most
Organization
Country
" It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Mind
Always
View
" It is said that Obama speaks 'professorially,' a fact that understates the quickness and agility of his mind. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fact
Quickness
Said
" I think at places like 'Slate' or the magazine where I work, there was a really poor record of hiring African-American writers. It was really that simple. And I think with the proliferation of the Internet and Internet media, it has been a little harder to maintain that gatekeeper position. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Work
Media
Internet
" 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
" I think Barack Obama was born into a home not just to a white woman and white grandparents, but a white woman and white grandparents who shockingly told him it was okay that he was black and that he should not be ashamed of it and that he should, in fact, be proud of it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Home
Think
Born
" 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
" 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
" In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Heritage
Black
Destroy
" The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
King
American
People
" I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Expected
Did
Become
" I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Violence
Situation
Born
" 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 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 two endorsements I'm most proud of come from Isabel Wilkerson and Toni Morrison. The latter is the greatest American fiction writer of our time, and the former is on her way to being the greatest American nonfiction writer of our time. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
American
Her
Proud
" Abraham Lincoln was killed by the forces of white supremacy. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Forces
Abraham
White
" We had particular policies in this country that resulted in the larger share of poverty that we have in African-American communities. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
African-American
Poverty
Had