Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God.

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.

And you know now, if you did not before, that the police departments of your country have been endowed with the authority to destroy your body.

America understands itself as God’s handiwork, but the black body is the clearest evidence that America is the work of men.