Ta Power Quotes & Sayings

Power lies not in what a king does, but in what his subjects believe he might do. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The black world was expanding before me, and I could see now that that world was more than a photonegative of that of the people who believe they are white. "White America" is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, "white people" would cease to exist for want of reasons. There will surely always be people with straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all history. But some of these straight-haired people with blue eyes have been "black," and this points to the great difference between their world and ours. We — Ta-Nehisi Coates

That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free. The men who had left his body in the street like some awesome declaration of their inviolable power would never be punished. It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished. But you were young and still believed. You stayed up till 11 P.M. that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said, "I've got to go," and you went into your room, and I heard you crying. I came in five minutes after, and I didn't hug you, and I didn't comfort you, because I thought it would be wrong to comfort you. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I read about Queen Nzinga who ruled in Central Africa in the 16th century resisting the Portuguese. I read about her negotiating with the Dutch. When the Dutch Ambassador tried to humiliate her by refusing her a seat Nzinga had shown her power by ordering one of her advisers to all fours to make a human chair of her body. That was the kind of power I saw. and the story of our own royalty became for me a weapon. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I can to see the streets and the schools as arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while the other enjoyed its implicit sanction. But fear and violence were the weaponry of both. Fail in the streets and the crews would catch you slipping and take your body. Fail in the schools and you would be suspended and sent back to those same streets, where they would take your body. And I began to see these two arms in relation - those who failed in the schools justified their destruction in the streets. The society could say, "He should have stayed in school," and then wash its hands of him — Ta-Nehisi Coates

When the Dutch ambassador tried to humiliate her by refusing her a seat, Nzinga had shown her power by ordering one of her advisers to all fours to make a human chair of her body. That was the kind of power I sought ... — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it. But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal. America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing between the white city of democracy and the terrorists, despots, barbarians, and other enemies of civilization. One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

This power, this black power, originates in a view of the American galaxy taken from a dark and essential planet. Black power is the dungeon-side view of Monticello - which is to say, the view taken in struggle. And black power births a kind of understanding that illuminates all the galaxies in their truest colors. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, "white people" would cease to exist for want of reasons. There — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Even in their final hours, my parents had hope. Once, they had put their hope in Wakanda. Now, they put their hope in Killmonger who would make Niganda great. Greater than even Wakanda. He promised them power and a country greater than any country in Africa. They were blinded by their desperate faith. Blinded by their hope. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

It is not necessary that you believe that the officer who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The crews, the young men who'd transmuted their fear into rage, were the greatest danger. The crews walked the blocks of their neighborhood, loud and rude, because it was only through their loud rudeness that they might feel any sense of security and power. They would break your jaw, stomp your face, and shoot you down to feel that power, to revel in the might of their own bodies. And their wild reveling, their astonishing acts made their names ring out. Reps were made, atrocities recounted. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I would imagine Malcolm, his body bound in a cell, studying the books, trading his human eyes for the power of flight. And I too felt bound by my ignorance, by the questions that I had not yet understood to be more than just means, by my lack of understanding — Ta-Nehisi Coates

White America" is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, "white people" would cease to exist for want of reasons. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

I came to see the streets and the schools as the arms of the same beast. One enjoyed the official power of the state while the other enjoyed its implicit sanction. But fear and violence were the weaponry of both. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

These new people are, like us, a modern invention. But unlike us, their new name has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were something else before they were white -- Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish -- and if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will have to be something else again. Perhaps they will truly become American and create a nobler basis for their myths. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The idea of race as an indelible attribute "is a new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white." These people are a "modern invention" whose whiteness "has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were something else before they were white - Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish - and if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will have to be something else again. Perhaps they will truly become American and create a nobler basis for their myth. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

We look at young black kids with a scowl on their face, walking a certain way down the block with their sweatpants dangling, however, with their hoodies on. And folks think that this is a show of power or a show of force. But I know, because I've been among those kids, it ultimately is fear. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The day after I became king, S'yan offered a single piece of wisdom. 'Power lies not in what a king does, but in what his subjects believe he might do.' This was profound. For it meant that the majesty of kings lay in their mystique... not in their might. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

President Obama's friend and counselor Ta-Nehisi Coates, from his perch atop the bestseller lists and at the pinnacle of power in America, denounces the American Dream, in terms that echo Obama's previous spiritual guide, Pastor Wright in Chicago, as a genocidal weight of whiteness. — George Gilder

You... kill... what you cannot control. Break... what you cannot bend. Is this what all my teachings have brought you to? Victory by any means? Conquest? Terror? You say you oppose kings, and yet your methods do not differ from theirs. You say you war against tyranny, but you too war against your own people. You say you bring the power of life. Then how did it happen that your very name became death? — Ta-Nehisi Coates

You do not give your precious body to the billy clubs of Birmingham sheriffs, nor to the insidious activity of the streets. — Ta-Nehisi Coates