Ta-Nehisi Coates Quotes

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear.

A majority of Americans want redemption for racism - for our terrible, destructive racist past - and so see a vote for Obama as redemptive.

Race must never be a partisan issue.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

One must learn how to be black in America.

What I know about this world is that white people will take care of themselves. And what I have learned is that if you are where they are on an equal basis, they cannot take care of themselves without taking care of you.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

As far as I'm concerned, and this is a big theme of mine, I'm not interested in white people loving me. It's an unrealistic expectation. Black people don't love anybody but themselves.

A race-transcendent politics is most likely to succeed when the white community takes responsibility for overcoming its racism, not when the black community decides to forget it.

the enemies of the colored race who are opposed to their progress and freedom assert that there is no virtue among them.

I think #BlackLivesMatter is a huge campaign that is important and integral to our advancement as a people.

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 will not stop fighting until every single black life is provided the type of love and support we so desperately deserve.

Quite frankly, black folks have always been at the core of what it's meant to make this nation human.

Even people who say that black people are minorities, there are a billion black people in the world. A billion white people. What part of that is a minority? If you separate yourself, then maybe. But I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.

Usually, 'All Lives Matter' comes as a response to 'Black Lives Matter'; it doesn't exist in a vacuum. So when people say 'Black Lives Matter,' a lot of times the response 'All Lives Matter' can seem very condescending, dismissive to 'Black Lives Matter.'

We need to fight for a new human rights movement that recognizes and values black life.

Black lives matter just as much as White lives matter, just as much as Hispanic lives matter.

We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter.

Our racial past and future is something that we Americans must address.

I think, the argument sometimes that I've had with folks who are much more interested in sort of race-specific programs is less an argument about what is practically achievable and sometimes maybe more an argument of "We want society to see what's happened, and internalize it, and answer it in demonstrable ways." And those impulses I very much understand.

I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like black ones, are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and place.

The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons.