“And in terms of poverty and race in this country, again, you know, one of the things that I really, really wanted to stress is, the level of poverty specifically that you see in the African-American community is not accidental. It’s not accidental. This is part of the process. The process of enslavement involves stealing something from someone. It involves taking something from someone.”

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

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 14, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "And in terms of poverty and race in this country, again, you know, one of the things that I really, really wanted to st…" by Ta-Nehisi Coates?
Ta-Nehisi Coates photo
Ta-Nehisi Coates 36
writer, journalist, and educator 1975

Related quotes

“Science proceeds by abstracting what is essential from the accidental details of matter and process.”

F. David Peat (1938–2017) British physicist

From Certainty to Uncertainty (2002)

Aaron Swartz photo

“The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.”

Aaron Swartz (1986–2013) computer programmer and internet-political activist

UTI interview (2004)
Context: The law about what is stealing is very clear. Stealing is taking something away from someone so they cannot use it. There’s no way that making a copy of something is stealing under that definition.
If you make a copy of something, you’ll be prosecuted for copyright infringement or something similar — not larceny (the legal term for stealing). Stealing, like piracy and intellectual property, is another one of those terms cooked up to make us think of intellectual works the same way we think of physical items. But the two are very different.
You can’t just punish people because they took away a “potential sale”. Earthquakes take away potential sales, as do libraries and rental stores and negative reviews. Competitors also take away potential sales.

Bernie Sanders photo
Ta-Nehisi Coates photo
Aron Ra photo

“Personally I think the only meaning your life will ever have is whatever your involvement means to someone else. The best strategy I think, if you want your life to mean something, try making someone else’s life meaningful. But if you want your life to mean something five billion years from now, it won’t –no matter what. Sorry. But what matters now still matters now.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Patheos, Anti-theist Answers to Christian Questions http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/22/anti-theist-answers-to-christian-questions/ (November 22, 2015)

Libba Bray photo
Boris Sidis photo

“The man of genius whether as artist or thinker requires a mass of accidental variations to select from and a rigidly selective process of attention.”

Boris Sidis (1867–1923) American psychiatrist

Source: The Foundations of Normal and Abnormal Psychology (1914), p. 98

Related topics