There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.
Ta-Nehisi CoatesRead
Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.
Interpretation
Racism involves a prejudgment against one group while providing unwarranted favor to another.
In this quote, Ta-Nehisi Coates highlights the unfairness of racism as it reflects a bias where one group is viewed with skepticism purely based on their identity, while another group receives unwarranted sympathy. This duality of perception contributes to systemic inequalities and demonstrates how prejudices affect social dynamics.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about diversity and inclusion initiatives in the workplace.
There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.
We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory.
I never expected my writing to become as popular as it did.
It's hard for me to view Baltimore outside the context of what Baltimore has always been in my mind: a violent place.
If I could have anything - you know, and this is across the board for any presidential candidate - I would have a greater acknowledgment of history in our policy and in our affairs.
You can't make a direct comparison between middle-class African Americans and middle-class white Americans, affluent African Americans and affluent white Americans. The amount of wealth tends to be less.
To those who have no personal experience of this revolutionary aspect of Christian truth, but who see only the outer crust of dead, human conservatism that tends to form around the Church the way barnacles gather on the hull of a ship, all this talk about dynamism sounds foolish.
Ive walked a lot in the mountains in Iceland. And as you come to a new valley, as you come to a new landscape, you have a certain view. If you stand still, the landscape doesnt necessarily tell you how big it is. It doesnt really tell you what youre looking at. The moment you start to move the mountain starts to move.
Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.
The same thing can be both good and bad. Whenever you speak of good, bad is also present. The world is a mixture of both. There is not good without bad. They are both sides of the same coin. Both are necessary. We have been given free will and discriminating capacity to select what is beneficial to us and to avoid what is detrimental to us. Even Cobra poison can be used as medicine.
There is no avoiding the fact that we live at the mercy of our ideas This is never more true than with our ideas about God.
We all have a responsibility to create a just society
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