The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy. Ta-Nehisi Coates More Quotes by Ta-Nehisi Coates More Quotes From Ta-Nehisi Coates 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 great soldier winter character White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage. Ta-Nehisi Coates heritage white country history 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 face black power fear I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate. Ta-Nehisi Coates yourself understand hate soul 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 hip-hop through vocabulary culture Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi. Ta-Nehisi Coates flag fly war world 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 inside worth think you When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what. Ta-Nehisi Coates black expectations white people I have never read 'To Kill A Mockingbird.' Ta-Nehisi Coates read never mockingbird 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 you chaos peace world 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 i-am black history people When you read a comic book, there's a space between what's happening on the panel and what you have to literally see in your mind. That's not true of movies, where you see everything. Ta-Nehisi Coates you space mind book Abraham Lincoln is singular. Abraham Lincoln, before he was killed, stood up and, you know, for the first time from any sitting president, stood for the right for suffrage for African-American men who had served in the Civil War. And that's a limited suffrage, but it was quite radical at the time. Ta-Nehisi Coates you time men war For nearly a century and a half, this country deluded itself into thinking that its greatest calamity, the Civil War, had nothing to do with one of its greatest sins, enslavement. It deluded itself in this manner despite available evidence to the contrary. Ta-Nehisi Coates nothing war country thinking The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in. Ta-Nehisi Coates happen live different country The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself that you can't have in America without enslavement, without Jim Crow, terrorism, everything that came after that. Ta-Nehisi Coates road you terrorism black 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 jump you racism feet
