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Quote by Ta-Nehisi Coates

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We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

This book is a compilation of essays that delve into the political and social dynamics of the United States during a specific eight-year period. The author examines the complexities of race, identity, and power, offering insights into the political climate of the time. more

Author

Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an American writer known for his insightful social commentary and literary works. His writings often focus on themes of race, history, and social justice, with his most famous work being 'Between the World and Me', which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015. more

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“[From 1994 introduction by Dr. Klaus Müller.] The postwar German government did not simply forget about homosexuals; on the contrary, it actively continued to persecute them, and to justify the efforts of the Nazis in this respect… The Nazi version of Paragraph 175 was, in fact, explicitly upheld in 1957 by the West German supreme court.”

GayGermanyNaziHomophobiaReparations
Book:The Men with the Pink Triangle: The True Life-and-Death Story of Homosexuals in the Nazi Death Camps
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“And so we must imagine a new country. Reparations—by which I mean the full acceptance of our collective biography and its consequences—is the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely. The recovering alcoholic may well have to live with his illness for the rest of his life. But at least he is not living a drunken lie. Reparations beckon us to reject the intoxication of hubris and see America as it is—the work of fallible humans. Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. What I’m talking about is more than recompense for past injustices—more than a handout, a payoff, hush money, or a reluctant bribe. What I’m talking about is a national reckoning that would lead to spiritual renewal. Reparations would mean the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage. Reparations would mean the end of yelling “patriotism” while waving a Confederate flag. Reparations would mean a revolution of the American consciousness, a reconciling of our self-image as the great democratizer with the facts of our history”

Reparations
Book:We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
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“There are pragmatic as well as moral grounds for the United States to follow Germany's lead [in dealing with it's past human rights crimes]. American media may have largely ignored the reasons we decided to destroy Hiroshima or oust the democratically elected governments in Iran or the Congo. Other nations' media has not. Few Americans are quite aware of how little credibility we retain in other parts of the world.”

MoralityMemoryGermanyReparationsLost Cause
Book:Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil
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“Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said that less than one-half day's cost of the Civil War could have purchased the freedom of all the slaves in Delaware. The Civil War cost the two sides a total of $6.6 billion in 1860s dollars, enough to buy the freedom of all the slaves at their 1860 market value, give each slave family 40 acres and a mule and make $3.5 billion in reparations to former slaves in lieu of 100 years of back wages.”

SlaveryAmerican Civil WarReparationsDelawareLincolnAbraham LincolnCivil Ware
Author:Claudia Goldin
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