A Quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates

You don't make a case for reparations thinking, 'Oh yeah, people are gonna love this.' I didn't see that coming. — © Ta-Nehisi Coates
You don't make a case for reparations thinking, 'Oh yeah, people are gonna love this.' I didn't see that coming.
I remember coming out of college thinking, 'OK, I'm gonna get an agent, and I'm gonna make money. I'm gonna make millions of dollars.' And that never happened.
I keep thinking they’re gonna call me. I keep thinking they’re gonna crunch the numbers and think, oh, we can make money with this! And they don’t.
"First female president." That's it, and that's nowhere near, by the way, as powerful or penetrating as the first African-American president. I mean, women, yeah, I mean, make the case that they've been victimized. But they can't put themselves in the same shoes as slavery's legacy for example. Now, women might try to make the case. Hillary [Clinton] might try to make the case about not being ought to be able to vote, but it ain't gonna fly.
I saw this sign posted once, it said, "Blasting Zone Ahead." Wow. Shouldn't that read: "Road Closed?" What do you mean there's a blasting zone? What am I supposed to do? "Hey-uh, you might wanna buckle up. Blasting zone coming up. Yeah. Just saw the sign. Put the helmets on back there! Yeah I think we're- (Pow!)- Oh! We're getting close! (Pow!)- Oh! This is gonna be a bad blasting zone! Remember that last one-we lost Billy?"
If you love with violence and you hate with violence, there's nothing that can be questioned. People say, 'Oh, you'd better work through your resentments.' Yeah, no. I'm gonna hang on to them, and they're gonna fuel my attack. And they're going to fuel the battle cry of my deadly and dangerous and secret and silent soldiers. Because they're all around you. Sorry, you thought you were just messing with one dude. Winning.
I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Of course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free, 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you and talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em.
What Obama is about, in my opinion, is he is a Global redistributionist. He's pursuing reparations but it's not racial reparations. It's global reparations for the sins and conquest of colonism.
The originating sin of America is slavery, for which reparations should be paid and will never be paid; as a result, mini-reparations are paid daily, and the NBA remains, for me, reparations theater.
I spent a great deal of my career willingly ignoring the fact that people are participating in it, because it allows me to function without second-guessing it, without thinking, 'Oh, I wonder what people are gonna think of this,' or, 'I wonder what people aren't gonna think of this.'
Sometimes you just work, you work, you work, and you have no life, no boyfriend, you have no more friends, no more nothing, you just make movies, and you're tired, and you don't know why. Then everybody says, 'Oh you are so lucky, you are working!' And you're like, 'Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's so great!'
We've got to stand up at some point and say, 'We are not gonna pay slavery reparations in the United States Congress.' That war's been fought. That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood, and it was paid for in the blood of a lot of Yankees, especially. And there's no reparations for the blood that paid for the sin of slavery.
I don't look at things goin', 'Oh, is this gonna make me rich? Is this gonna make me a star? Am I gonna win awards?' If all that stuff happens, great. Who cares? I still have to wake up in the morning and go to work and be happy to do it.
Let me demonstrate. When you greet a friend this is the duration of the kiss that's acceptable. "Hi, good to see you - yeah." When you make a mistake and stay too long at the lips, this is how long it is. "Hi, how are you? Good to see you." And that's what happened. It was like, "Uh-oh, what was that? Oh."
Reparations, I believe, are talked about for political reasons, trying to cater for the purpose of getting votes. If Congress was serious about reparations - in '93 and '94 the Democrats controlled the House, the Senate and the White House, and not one single Republican vote was needed for reparations.
We have an expression in New York City government - "In God we trust, but for everyone else, bring data." It's so easy to pick up a sound byte and say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that," without really thinking.
Yeah, I love ponytails. I'm a wash-and-go girl. But, oh yeah, I like to whip it.
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