Ta-Nehisi Coates

“Kaepernick's protest has been very successful. I really appreciate the fact that he's been giving away money to organisations; he pledged to give away a million dollars, and he's been doing...”

“There's a kind of optimism specifically within Christianity about the world - about whose side God is on. Well, I didn't have any of that in my background. I had physicality and chaos.”

“Donald Trump begins his political career in birtherism. That idea is connected to a very, very old notion that African-Americans are not citizens.”

“I didn't start off as a journalist; I started off as a poet. My ambition was to practise poetry. Then I found journalism, but that other voice never fled from me.”

“I think human societies tend to be problematic.”

“It is, I think, the very chaos of America that allowed me to prosper.”

“I do understand how hate eats at the soul and how to purge yourself of hate.”

“When you write, you're inside the project. You can't really think about the reception. It has to be worth it even if no one reads it.”

“Life is always a problem. The fact that I'm on the radio saying that I don't necessarily see hope does not relieve people, does not relieve my son, does not relieve children, of the responsi...”

“The country in which reparations actually happen is a very different one than the one we live in.”

“You can oppose reparations all you want, but you got to know the facts. You really, really do.”

“When people think about reparations, they immediately think about people who've been dead for 100 years.”

“I think it's really important to be conscious of yourself and the world around you. For me, that meant reading a lot and reporting.”

“We had particular policies in this country that resulted in the larger share of poverty that we have in African-American communities.”

“It is often said that Trump has no real ideology, which is not true - his ideology is white supremacy, in all its truculent and sanctimonious power.”

“In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I...”

“White supremacy is a very, very popular and trenchant belief in this country's history and heritage.”

“'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies.”

“Black people are pledging their fealty to the state, and yet they aren't getting the same return. This is theft. It's systemized.”

“My job is to look out on that world that I write about and be as honest as I possibly can about that world. If that's optimistic and uplifting, OK. If it's not, OK.”