Between the World and Me (One World Essentials)

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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

this is the new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white.

The new people were something else before they were white—Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish—

I do not believe that we can stop them, Samori, because they must ultimately stop themselves.

But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. The Dreamers will have to learn to struggle themselves, to understand that the field for their Dream, the stage where they have painted themselves white, is the deathbed of us all.