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" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Government
Peace
Path
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" In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage. "
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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. "
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" The president of the United States is not a king. You know? Barack Obama was elected by the American people. "
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" 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. "
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" 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. "
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Black
Long
" You had eight years before President Trump, a situation where the opposition party basically ran in opposition to the president on a platform of thinly based racism. That doesn't mean that the politicians themselves were outright racist, but when charges of birtherism came up, no one repudiated it. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Situation
You
Party
" As a writer, I was shaped by a desire to write for black people. That things were not being represented. That was my motivating force. That it has become what it has become is shocking to me. I just wanted to be able to take care of my kids. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
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Black
" When I grew up in West Baltimore, anything associated - and I'm talking about my childhood - with white people 99 percent of the time was something malevolent, like it was an explanatory force for something bad. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Childhood
People
Talking
" African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Country
Beginning
Here
" The African-American tradition, in the main, is very, very church-based, very, very Christian. It accepts, you know, certain narratives about the world. I didn't really have that present in my house. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tradition
Know
World
" American myths have never been colorless. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
American
Myths
Never
" When you know that people know who you are, you are always working - and not the work you want to do. You are sort of performing, because you know they are looking - or at least glancing - at you. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Want
Work
You
" 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
" 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
" White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
White
Racial
Never
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Saying
Release
I See
" 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
" The process of getting conscious, for me, was a very, very uncomfortable, disturbing, and sometimes physically painful process. And so that's the standard to which I write, because it was what I've experienced over my time. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Me
Over
Process
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
History
People
Her
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
People
War
Slavery
" Amiri Baraka went to Howard. Lucille Clifton went to Howard. Ossie Davis went to Howard. And I was aware of that when I was there. Charles Drew went to Howard. Thurgood Marshall went to the law school. Being aware of that and having all of that brought to bear, again, it's one of those things that I can't really separate from my career as a writer. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Bear
Career
Law
" You can't tolerate anybody attempting to threaten or intimidate your body. You must respond with force. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Body
Force
Respond
" One of the things that's really, really present in 'Between the World and Me' is, I am in some ways outside of the African-American tradition. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Tradition
Present
Me
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
First
Black
Power
" The ties between the Obama White House and the hip-hop community are genuine. "
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Obama
White
Community
" Racism is a physical experience. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Physical
Experience
Racism
" I'm not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton's neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call privilege and about why it's there. Black people in this country have no choice but to be curious. We have to know. I wish folks would do a little bit more investigation. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Wish
Black
Choice
" 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
" 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. "
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Easy
World
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" 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
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