Ta-Nehisi Coates

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I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world

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Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others

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The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests. The library was open, unending, free. Slowly, I was discovering myself

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My mother and father were always pushing me away from secondhand answers—even the answers they themselves believed. I don’t know that I have ever found any satisfactory answers of my own. But every time I ask it, the question is refined. That is the best of what the old heads meant when they spoke of being “politically conscious

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I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people's interests. The library is open, unending, free