A Quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount.
Black Realism or cosmopolitan black politician is a code word to say this is a black person that is not tied to a civil rights/black power traditional black politics.
Adults who loved and knew me, on many occasions sat me down and told me that I was black. As you could imagine, this had a profound impact on me and soon became my truth. Every friend I had was black; my girlfriends were black. I was seen as black, treated as black, and endured constant overt racism as a young black teenager.
Have I had experiences by other people identifying me as black and behaving towards me as black? Yes. Just for as long as maybe somebody who was born categorised as black? No.
I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.
I know that statistically, it has been proven that there is a tremendous amount of black on black crime within the inner cities.
People called me 'Iman the black model'. In my country, we're all black, so nobody called somebody else black. It was foreign to my ears.
When someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible, because what it means is that the person who’s asking that question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through, what black people have experienced in this country, since the time the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.
The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I'm like, 'This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.' I just feel it's my being.
When I look around, I see so many incredible Black performers, inside and outside of our company. It feels like a really great time for Black wrestlers, and there are so many Black wrestling fans that I feel are starting to see themselves on screen.
Somebody once said to me after I'd done "Deep Impact," "What is it like to play a Black president," and I said, "I didn't play a Black president. I played a president. I just happened to be Black. There's a difference.
The Black church is extremely important in Black America. I think most Americans themselves believe in a divine power, in a god, and I'm sure that that number increases with Black people.
Someone once told me to "be a black belt at whatever you do." In other words, don't just be good or okay - be the best you can be. Not only do I apply that to my work as an actress, but I also went out and got my black belt.
I've never seen a sincere white man, not when it comes to helping black people. Usually things like this are done by white people to benefit themselves. The white man's primary interest is not to elevate the thinking of black people, or to waken black people, or white people either. The white man is interested in the black man only to the extent that the black man is of use to him. The white man's interest is to make money, to exploit.
People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, 'But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green.' I'm like, 'What? No, no, I'm definitely black.' Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.
A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.
I wanted to make sure the focus [in The Land] was on human beings themselves and their decisions, but still connected to the urban environment that people associate as being black. I think I was able to make a film without commenting on "black this or black that" and you still feel the presence of it. There's no one character who's saying "we're all black and we're all in this struggle." It's that you just feel it. Some of that is because we get the sense from a lot of independent films that black people struggle all the time.
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