Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

But race is the child of racism, not the father.

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.

And it is so easy to look away, to live with the fruits of our history and to ignore the great evil done in all of our names.

There is nothing uniquely evil in these destroyers or even in this moment. The destroyers are merely men enforcing the whims of our country, correctly interpreting its heritage and legacy.

I was a curious boy, but the schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance.

The Dream thrives on generalization, on limiting the number of possible questions, on privileging immediate answers. The Dream is the enemy of all art, courageous thinking, and honest writing.

And though I could never, myself, be a native of any of these worlds, I knew that nothing so essentialist as race stood between us.