{"quotes":[{"text":"It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort, was the process that would not award me my own especial Dream but would break all the dreams, all the comforting myths of Africa, of America, and everywhere, and would leave me only with humanity in all its terribleness. And there was so much terrible out there, even among us. You must understand this.","author":"Ta-Nehisi Coates","tags":["african-americans","blacks","discomfort","education","learning","race-relations","racism"],"id":356,"author_id":"Ta-Nehisi+Coates"},{"text":"And I know that there are black boys and black girls out there lost in a Bermuda triangle of the mind or stranded in the doldrums of America, some of them treading and some of them drowning, never feeling and never forgetting. The most precious thing I had then is the most precious thing I have now—my own curiosity. That is the thing I knew, even in the classroom, they could not take from me. That is the thing that buoyed me and eventually plucked me from the sea.","author":"Ta-Nehisi Coates","tags":["african-americans","curiosity","frustration","perseverance","resilience","struggle"],"id":2267,"author_id":"Ta-Nehisi+Coates"},{"text":"This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America.","author":"Paul Robeson","tags":["african-americans","america","equal-rights","fighting","injustice","race","race-relations","truth"],"id":2568,"author_id":"Paul+Robeson"},{"text":"The power structure understands that Black folks have been hungry for so long, fixing us a plate now that's the same size as theirs would do nothing for our hunger. After all, they're pretty full and fat.They know we now require a much bigger plate than theirs to quiet the stomach rumblings.They see us and know what it looks like to be less powerful. They are fighting to never FEEL it.","author":"Darnell Lamont Walker","tags":["african-americans","black-people","equality","government","power","race-relations","racism","systematic-racism"],"id":13107,"author_id":"Darnell+Lamont+Walker"},{"text":"I consider myself an American African because we did not come by choice.","author":"Alafia Stewart","tags":["african-americans","america","black-people","civil-rights","racism","segregation","slavery"],"id":24177,"author_id":"Alafia+Stewart"},{"text":"I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.","author":"Paul Beatty","tags":["african-americans","blacks","guilt","incarceration","innocence","jail","justice","justice-system","prison","race-relations"],"id":25037,"author_id":"Paul+Beatty"},{"text":"Holocaust survivors and their descendants are supposed to hate those who oppressed and killed them and their people. Black people are not. This is how anti-blackness works.","author":"Darnell Lamont Walker","tags":["african-americans","anti-blackness","black-people","hate","hatred","hitler","holocaust","nazi","race","race-relations","racism"],"id":25580,"author_id":"Darnell+Lamont+Walker"},{"text":"It is my deepest desire to share the worlds of people we don’t often see or read about in media. With my writing I seek to introduce you to the worlds I’ve always known existed around me and within me.","author":"Casey Curry","tags":["african-americans","characters","military-wives","stereotypes","writing-life"],"id":29587,"author_id":"Casey+Curry"},{"text":"Programmed in self-hatred, many of us shadow-box the light of day away and chase everything meaningless the night through until we perish more ignorant and confused than the very day we were born.","author":"D. Allen Miller","tags":["african-americans","ignorance","self-hatred"],"id":33296,"author_id":"D.+Allen+Miller"},{"text":"There are no clean victories for black people, nor, perhaps, for any people. The presidency of Barack Obama is no different. One can now say that an African American individual can rise to the same level as a white individual, and yet also say that the number of black individuals who actually qualify for that status will be small. One thinks of Serena Williams, whose dominance and stunning achievements can’t, in and of themselves, ensure equal access to tennis facilities for young black girls. The gate is open and yet so very far away.","author":"Ta-Nehisi Coates","tags":["african-americans","barack-obama","blacks","equality","politics","potus","presidents","race-relations"],"id":35904,"author_id":"Ta-Nehisi+Coates"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":75,"pages":8,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}