Ta-Nehisi Coates: Black

“I recoil at the idea of someone reading my book because they really should read a black author or two. I don't want to be an icebreaker at your corporation's Kwanzaa gathering.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

The Damned Mob of Scribbling Women http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/06/the-damned-mob-of-scribbling-women/239882/ (Jun 3, 2011) The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com
Context: I'm looking to avoid a subtly demeaning subtext which holds that reading, say, is something you should do--like flossing or taxes or laundry. I don't want to speak for women writers, but I recoil at the idea of someone reading my book because they really should read a black author or two. I don't want to be an icebreaker at your corporation's Kwanzaa gathering.

Books , Idea , Reading

“When people wanted to criticize the Affordable Care Act they would often say “This is reparations. This is reparations.” Liberals [were often saying (somewhat indistinct)] “No, no, no. This isn’t for black people. This will benefit everybody.” In a just world we would say “Yes. This does disproportionately benefit black people and that’s a very, very good thing because for most of our history we have disproportionately injured black people and our policy should be structured in such a way that take that into account.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

"Ta-Nehisi Coates on Segregation, Housing Discrimination and 'The Case for Reparations'" https://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/30/part_2_ta_nehisi_coates_on (May 30, 2014) Part 2, Democracy Now! https://www.democracynow.org

People , World , Way , History

“Any empirical evaluation of the relationship between Trump and the white working class would reveal that one adjective in that phrase is doing more work than the other. In 2016, Trump enjoyed majority or plurality support among every economic branch of whites. It is true that his strongest support among whites came from those making $50,000 to $99,999. This would be something more than working-class in many nonwhite neighborhoods, but even if one accepts that branch as the working class, the difference between how various groups in this income bracket voted is revealing. Sixty-one percent of whites in this "working class" supported Trump. Only 24 percent of Hispanics and 11 percent of blacks did. Indeed, the plurality of all voters making less than $100,000 and the majority making less than $50,000 voted for the Democratic candidate. So when Packer laments [in the New Yorker] the fact that "Democrats can no longer really claim to be the party of working people—not white ones, anyway," he commits a kind of category error. The real problem is that Democrats aren't the party of white people—working or otherwise. White workers are not divided by the fact of labor from other white demographics; they are divided from all other laborers by the fact of their whiteness.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

"The First White President" (October 2017)

People , Error , Support , Problem

“Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Deep South, a second slavery ruled. In the North, legislatures, mayors, civic associations, banks, and citizens all colluded to pin black people into ghettos, where they were overcrowded, overcharged, and undereducated. Businesses discriminated against them, awarding them the worst jobs and the worst wages. Police brutalized them in the streets. And the notion that black lives, black bodies, and black wealth were rightful targets remained deeply rooted in the broader society. Now we have half-stepped away from our long centuries of despoilment, promising, “Never again.” But still we are haunted. It is as though we have run up a credit-card bill and, having pledged to charge no more, remain befuddled that the balance does not disappear. The effects of that balance, interest accruing daily, are all around us.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

" The Case for Reparations https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/" (June, 2014) The Atlantic

People , Business , Wealth

“The average African-American family in this country making $100,000, which is, you know, decent money, actually lives in the same kind of neighborhood that the average white family making $35,000 a year lives in. That is totally tied to the legacy of enslavement and Jim Crow and the input and the idea in the mind that white people and black people are somehow deserving of different things.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Reparations Are Not Just About Slavery But Also Centuries of Theft & Racial Terror, Democracy Now (20 June 2019)