Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected.
People know things and have a remarkable capacity to act in their individual immediate interests all the time.
If I have to jump six feet to get the same thing that you have to jump two feet for - that's how racism works.
Any time you have, you know, upwards of 90 percent of a demographic voting against somebody, that's a statement.
You don't make a case for reparations thinking, 'Oh yeah, people are gonna love this.' I didn't see that coming.
When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.
We want to believe racism is an artifact of the past, and if you have a political massacre, that contradicts that.
It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.
These were the days when I powerfully believed Breyers and Entenmann's to be pioneers in the field of antidepressants.
Breitbart media is named after the same gentleman who basically framed Shirley Sherrod during the Obama administration.
White racial grievance enjoys automatic credibility, and even when disproven, it is never disqualifying of its bearers.
I've been very, very careful to tell people what I am qualified to talk about and what I'm not qualified to talk about.
The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.
Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.
If your response to the first black president is to say they weren't born in this country... you might be a white supremacist.
African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning.
My mom used to tell me, I can't use this phrase on the radio - but basically don't be one of those dudes hanging on the corner.
[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.
In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.
Black people are pledging their fealty to the state, and yet they aren't getting the same return. This is theft. It's systemized.
I think it's really important to be conscious of yourself and the world around you. For me, that meant reading a lot and reporting.
An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.
When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it.
It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary.
We had particular policies in this country that resulted in the larger share of poverty that we have in African-American communities.
Well into the 20th century, black people spoke of their flight from Mississippi in much the same manner as their runagate ancestors had.
I'm a writer. My job is to speak what - that which I think is true. If that bridges the gap, that's good. If it doesn't, that's too bad.
It meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.
I just think that if one is going to preach nonviolence and one is going to advocate for nonviolence, one's standard should be consistent.
Addressing the moral failings of black people while ignoring the centuries-old failings of their governments amounts to a bait and switch.
The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.
I don't attempt to make people uncomfortable; I think that my standards in terms of art and journalism always have necessitated my discomfort.
One of the things that's really, really present in 'Between the World and Me' is, I am in some ways outside of the African-American tradition.
If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America.
The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple - talk about class and hope no one notices.
The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.
Donald Trump begins his political career in birtherism. That idea is connected to a very, very old notion that African-Americans are not citizens.
My belief is in the chaos of the world and that you have to find your peace within the chaos and that you still have to find some sort of mission.
It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.
I write what I write in the way that I write it. I'm not being abstract, you know. I'm talking about something that, you know, is a part of my life.
When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what.
It's very hard to be black in this country and hate America. It's really hard to live like that. I would actually argue it's impossible to fully see yourself.
Somebody once told me, black people, in and of themselves, are cosmopolitan. There's cosmopolitanism within the black experience. There's an incredible amount.
The Knowledge Rule 2080: From maggots to men, the world is a corner bully. Better you knuckle up and go for yours than have to bow your head and tuck your chain.
I didn't start off as a journalist; I started off as a poet. My ambition was to practise poetry. Then I found journalism, but that other voice never fled from me.
My job is to look out on that world that I write about and be as honest as I possibly can about that world. If that's optimistic and uplifting, OK. If it's not, OK.
Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing 'mere' about symbols.
If, to the end of its existence, America harbors white supremacy, I don't know how remarkable that would be. France has dealt with anti-Semitism since its inception.
I don't want them to read what I'm writing and say, 'I think that's right,' and agree with me. I want them to read something and then walk away and be haunted by it.