'If Obama said that?': Ta-Nehisi Coates' test exposes how institutional racism helps Trump

Celebrated author Ta-Nehisi Coates joined MSNBC's Chris Hayes to talk about racism in the era of President Donald Trump.

"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," Hayes quoted from Coates' The Atlantic essay, "The First White President."

"In Trump, white supremacists see one of their own," Hayes continued to quote.

"Racism works by raising the barrier for certain people and lowering the barrier considerably for other people," Coates explained.

"The test always is go through a list of things that Donald Trump has said," Coates said.

"Randomly look on twitter on any day and say, 'what would happen if Barack Obama had said that?' Just ask yourself."

"If you can construct a world in which Barack Obama can get away with saying all of those things and being president, you are better than me, because I don't have those powers of imagination.

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