"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 believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist. ... One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me (2015), p. 8
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/American_benevolence
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
American benevolence
113 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by American benevolence →
Related Quotes
"This country has shed more blood for the freedom of other people than all the other nations in the history of the wor…"
"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and w…"
"Republicans sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get t…"
"It's threatening enough when government uses force in America, but the really big guns come out when government inter…"
"And as for a flag for the Philippine Province, it is easily managed. We can have a special one - our States do it: we…"
"Regime change, substituting one tyrant for another tyrant, with the biggest tyrant pulling the puppet strings of all …"
"The scale of the tragedy that has befallen Lebanon is a result of the continuous Israeli attacks, which have reached …"
"Never before in modern history has a country dominated the earth so totally as the United States does today. [...] Am…"
"From the dawn of history the oppressor has always insisted that oppression was good for the oppressed."
"It wants to stop being seen as the supporter of Muslim tyrants and instead become the champion of Muslim freedoms. Pr…"