Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

But my experience in this world has been that the people who believe themselves to be white are obsessed with the politics of personal exoneration.

“We would prefer to say that such people cannot exist, that there aren’t any,” writes Solzhenitsyn. “To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law.” This is the foundation of the Dream—its adherents must not just believe in it but believe that it is just, believe that their possession of the Dream is the natural result of grit, honor, and good works.