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A review by elliebell
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
5.0
Sitting on my shelves since 2017 (the year it was published & 1 year after Barack Obama’s presidency ended), this book finally got my attention. I had a vague notion that reading it might be a mistake—not only for the heartbreak I would incur by immersing myself in thoughts about my favorite president, particularly as we face the upcoming election, but also because those musings might now seem irrelevant.
I should have known better. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a master; his nonfiction is unparalleled. Arranged in 8 sections, each introduced with 10 pages or so of Coates’s “Notes” from that year, the essays muse on varied topics pertinent to that year, his personal & writing life, the history & politics of then & now.
Entitled This is How We Lost to the White Man, Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?, Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, etc., the chapters’ commentary is insightful, unsparing: of Obama, pervasive American racism & the resulting Black trauma, Bill Cosby, himself. Joy is there, too: with Obama, who he has befriended, interviewed & feels embodies “Black people’s everyday, extraordinary Americanness;” with the flourishing of Black authors, musicians, filmmakers, journalists during his presidency; with James Baldwin & Malcom X.
Much food for reflection, delivered with clear-eyed precision. A searing indictment of the white supremacy embodied in Donald Trump follows in the epilogue.
Side note: interestingly, the title comes from an 1895 congressman’s plea highlighting Black achievement during Reconstruction, as his state of SC moved toward restoring white supremacy via violence & Black suppression.
I should have known better. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a master; his nonfiction is unparalleled. Arranged in 8 sections, each introduced with 10 pages or so of Coates’s “Notes” from that year, the essays muse on varied topics pertinent to that year, his personal & writing life, the history & politics of then & now.
Entitled This is How We Lost to the White Man, Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?, Fear of a Black President, The Case for Reparations, etc., the chapters’ commentary is insightful, unsparing: of Obama, pervasive American racism & the resulting Black trauma, Bill Cosby, himself. Joy is there, too: with Obama, who he has befriended, interviewed & feels embodies “Black people’s everyday, extraordinary Americanness;” with the flourishing of Black authors, musicians, filmmakers, journalists during his presidency; with James Baldwin & Malcom X.
Much food for reflection, delivered with clear-eyed precision. A searing indictment of the white supremacy embodied in Donald Trump follows in the epilogue.
Side note: interestingly, the title comes from an 1895 congressman’s plea highlighting Black achievement during Reconstruction, as his state of SC moved toward restoring white supremacy via violence & Black suppression.