Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

Sometimes we say we want an end to hate or racism or sexism. But we all participate in keeping these structures alive. If everyone decided to relinquish the past what would happen to people who feel that there hasn't been proper atonement made to them? And what happens to the person who feels that the constant atonement is their identity?

That happens to a lot of couples. I understand the black history in this country, and regret it, I wish it hadn't happened. See, I also know that it hasn't happened to African-Americans alive today. There isn't one African-American alive today who's treated as three-fifths of a person like it was in the past.

Well, the white race in America is the same way. As individuals it is impossible for them to escape the collective crime committed against the Negroes in this country, collectively.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.

Being born, especially being born a person of color, is a political act in itself.

America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.

We examine and highlight the history of the African descendants in America, and know that each and every one of us has come this far because of our faith in this country.

For a long time in the United States, in practice if not in principle, only white, male, Protestants were born free and equal.

When George Washington and the others created U. S. independence, they did not free the slaves; not long ago, a U. S. black athlete could not play baseball in the major leagues. And yet you called yours the freest country in the world.

Those who are privileged have little regard for history.

Even though the founders were aggressive in pursuing liberty, their quest for equality failed to include all.

The time has gone by for colored people to talk of patriotism: ... He used to be proud that his grandfather … fought for liberty in the Revolutionary War. But that time had passed by.

Several of Providence Merchant John Brown’s slaves ran away to Boston. About a year later they showed up and asked to be taken in again. It says something about how hard it was to be a free Black at that time

Happy memories … need to be put in context. I have interviewed many white people who have fond memories of their lives in the 1950s and early 1960s. The ones who never cross examined these memories to get at the complexities were the ones most hostile to the Civil Rights and the Women’s Movements, which they saw as destroying the harmonious world they remembered.

No man can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free. You may enslave a man after he is born free, and that is in fact what this country does. It enslaves black people after they’re born, so that the only acts that white people can do is to stop denying black people their freedom; that is, they must stop denying freedom. They never give it to anyone.

I think white women need to wake up and say, 'Not all women are white,' three times in front of the mirror.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Freedom in America was not always flat. Racism made it un-flat, so that some people had privileges over other people.

Power, privilege, and violence are not, and never were, strictly Southern issues in America.

I have come to believe that America is a promise we have made to one another.

Millions of people in the world's poorest countries remain enslaved by the chains of poverty. It is time to set them free.

You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and gives a name to them, and explains why it is like this.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

The truth is that in this country you here you're more likely to be harassed, hurt, or killed if you're a minister speaking about progress for Black people than if you are a sure enough revolutionary.

Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains-whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.