"Our folks understood that there was a war upon us and that school was a weapon that outdid any Glock. Yet the whole process—with its equally spaced desks, precisely timed periods and lectures, with its standardized pencils and tests—felt unnatural to me. But much as I hated their terms, having been impressed into them, I hated more the failing. So I was left with a great unconscious sadness, an emptiness which, even when I was alone, I was not fully aware. But it worked on me like an invisible weight, altered my laughter, posture, my approach to girls. Fuck what you have heard or what you have seen in your son. He may lie about homework and laugh when the teacher calls home. He may curse his teacher, propose arson for the whole public system. But inside is the same sense that was in me. None of us ever want to fail. None of us want to be unworthy, to not measure up."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Essayists from the United StatesEditors from the United StatesMemoirists from the United StatesBloggers from the United StatesJournalists from Baltimore
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 169-170.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ta-Nehisi_Coates
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Ta-Nehisi Coates
58 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Ta-Nehisi Coates →
Related Quotes
"[M]y goal is to get kids to own their education. I don't think I can hector them into doing this. I don't think I can…"
"Weakness, misery, does not always elicit sympathy. Perhaps that is because the weakness reminds of what we we fear fo…"
"No other athlete in a major sport gives so much of his body and gets so little in return than the average player on a…"
"Mr. [Clyde] Ross at that time, like most African Americans around the country, was unable to secure a loan, due to po…"
"When people wanted to criticize the Affordable Care Act they would often say “This is reparations. This is reparation…"
"You actually can’t understand American history without understanding slavery."
"Having been enslaved for 250 years, black people were not left to their own devices. They were terrorized. In the Dee…"
"When nonviolence is preached as an attempt to evade the repercussions of political brutality, it betrays itself. When…"
"[James Baldwin is] probably the biggest influence on me from a literary perspective."
"I'm looking to avoid a subtly demeaning subtext which holds that reading, say, is something you should do--like floss…"