Where do I begin when reviewing We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates? I don't think... actually... I know I don't have the words to express how impressive this collection of articles is. I'm reminded of Zoolander 2 when Zoolander says he literally does not have the vocabulary to respond. I am in that moment. For those thinking what an idiot I am for throwing Zoolander into a review of Coates, who is a stunning writer, is absolutely correct. So...

For those familiar with Ta-Nahisi Coates are reintroduced to the ideas or experiences he had before writing said article during the eight years of Obama's presidency. For the rest of us, you need to read this and become acquainted with his brilliance. I put myself in the "rest of us" category because I was unaware he existed. In hindsight, I feel like I deprived myself for many years so it's imperative that I right this wrong and absorb all the Coates I can.

Allow me to digress in explaining how I've come to this place of awe with all things Coates. I recently decided to go back to school for receipts. Receipts are degrees. I bought into the idea that if you work hard you'll get somewhere but I burned out of working hard after spending two years clocking out of one job to clock into another. Looking back on what was my life six months ago, I wanted to prove the Facebook commenters wrong when describing the black community or underpaid workforce. I was making a 32,000 a year and struggling (even while living in my mother's home... with no children) so I figured I'd take on another gig and I started making closer to 46,000 a year. But... I began to see a flaw in this working hard BS that everyone claims is the path to the American Dream, this key to prosperity, this machine that disenfranchised many, and convinced others that they don't work hard enough therefore they don't deserve a living wage.

With much trepidation and fear of losing my car, I stepped out on faith and hope that if I finally finished school I'd have the degrees proper tools to make it in this world. Plus, I had dropped out of college twice before. It was time to finish what I started.

Now, let's get to how I was introduced to Coates. Well, I was given an assignment in my Sociology class to read The Case for Reparations and was even quizzed on it. After reading Coates Atlantic article I was pissed. I mean mad as hell. For the last 3 years I've been gainfully employed with a company that I really love. The work I do is no longer customer service focused and allows my work to be noticed by the president of the company. Yes, the company is small but I love it. I loved all of it except this overwhelming sense that I needed to be careful. There are only 4 people of color in this 200+ company and I've never been more aware of my "blackness" than at this company. I mean... I grew up in Evanston, IL where diversity is golden. A sort of Utopia I allowed to blind me to the truths of the real world. The truth is that racism exists in all its glory to this day even after having a black president. It just isn't always overt. The Case for Reparations proved this by giving a face to the red-lining practices of the 60s to present and because I'm a victim, I compared my situation to this article. I worked hard and tried to be better than the rest. I bit my tongue when something wasn't right... yet... the white people around me were receiving recognition for doing their jobs.

I've digressed some. My point is this, Coates wrote this article and referenced a man who'd worked hard and was still treated as a second class citizen that outsiders looking in would suggest he didn't work hard enough. To the contrary. He worked super hard, procured a home mortgage, tried to play the game and was still counted out. No it doesn't discourage me from getting my receipts, but it does make me relate to the people in the black community who feel no matter what or how they behave, it will not change the way America's racism is ingrained so far in its fabric, there is probably no way to unravel this thread... ever.

Either way, I decided to read more of his work. Most recently I read The First White President article after seeing him speak at my high school Evanston Township, and witnessed his brilliance first-hand. After writing brilliance I have to kinda fall back a moment. This collection of articles and the prelude to them are brilliantly written, no doubt. He's rightfully been compared to James Baldwin and others of his magnitude when relaying the subject of race and their relations. Yet, his brilliance is based on a life full of first-hand knowledge.

Yikes...I've super digressed. Suffice it to say, I could actually write a more traditional review and highlight or quote Coates but seriously, I don't think there was one page that didn't get highlighted. I understand and felt a lot of the frustration he expounded in the writings that provide insight to the article's purpose or reasoning behind it.

Ultimately, I loved We Were Eight Years in Power. I even enjoyed rereading the few articles I'd already read on The Atlantic's website. There's really no way to review this work except to encourage someone, anyone who feels they're tired of hearing the woe-is-me that they liken to the black experience, or those who feel no one else is aware of the struggle that faces being black in America really is. This collection is for you. To open the eyes of the naysayers and to encourage the downtrodden.

Copy provided by Random House Publishing via Netgalley

One of the things that I enjoy most about reading Ta-Nehisi Coates' essays, articles, and books is how much you forced to think for yourself in them. Reading his writing reminds me of being with a teacher that is explaining things to you and leading you to a conclusion that they want, but you still feel like you connected some of the dots on your own. I think that it is one of his greatest strengths as a writer - that ability to bring you to a thought without feeling like it was forced down your throat. We Were Eight Years in Power brings together 8 essays/articles from the eight years of President Obama being in office, plus introductions to each article in which Coates adds context. Additionally, there are two essays at the beginning and ending of the book to act as bookends to the entire project. Reading these 8 essays in one book helps to develop the themes Coates keeps coming back to, often in ways that are seamless and make the essays seem as though they were written all in one sitting, not over the course of 8 years. All of the essays are extremely strong, but the last four - "Fear of a Black President", "The Case for Reparations", "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration", and "My President Was Black" - are brilliant. I knew of two of the essays ("The Case for Reparations" & "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration") but had never read them, and had read part of "My President Was Black" before I picked up the book, and I feel better educated having read the essays instead of the reactions to them.

This book should be required reading for adults of all political persuasions, races, creeds, everyone. Being forced to confront our past and the ways that race continually affects daily life would help to move forward as a country. Within one of the introductions to an essay, I believe it is "The Case for Reparations", Coates describes his desire to continue to legacy of James Baldwin. Having read this book, I believe that he has met that goal, and can continue to raise the level of conversation to help us grow as a country.

I feel as though anything I write will be insufficient to describe the brilliance that is this book spanning the eight years of the Obama presidency.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a way with words that is truly transporting and I would take time after each chapter to sit, think, and journal about what I had just read.

A truly gifted writer can transport you to a time and place and Coates does just that with each piece. Every single one took me back to that time and place where I joined in feeling many of the same emotions that Coates articulated for that time.

If you love anything from non-fiction to political books to even just reading brilliant prose, then you will love this book. It makes me not only want to up my writing game but also made me nostalgic for the presidency when it was honored and not denigrated.

Do yourself a favor and give this book a read. You won't regret it.

Coates is an incredible writer and compassionate human being. These writings are thoughtful, angry, heart breaking and ultimately a true representation of the author's thoughts on the state of today. This was tough reading but full-filling and enlightening.

For those of us who discovered Coates with the publication of Between the World and Me, this collection of previously published articles gives us a broader perspective on who he is as a writer and might serve as an inspiration to go online and seek out other articles written by him. In its pages you will find eight essays, one for each year of the Obama administration. Each deals with a topic that was most relevant to African Americans and other minorities. Coates introduces each article with an honest critique of it.

This is Ta-Nehisi Coates' newest novel chronicling the eight years of Barack Obama's presidency, through his eight-part book- each part representing one year of the presidency. While this lacks the same concentrated power found in his previous works, it still packs a punch with its sobering look at racism in America, even during a time when a Black man was our president. Each of the eight parts consists of one of his essays that were released in the corresponding year, as well as some prefacing notes. This was a bit harder for me to get through than his other work- in part because it was a bit drawn-out and in part because oh my god what is our world. But it is such an important work that I believe will be read for years to come.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is pissed. He has a thing or two to say about the historical continuity of racism in the USA, and in this series of eight outstanding essays, he says it well. I read it free and early thanks to Net Galley and One World Publications, and I apologize for reviewing it so late; the length wasn’t a problem, but the heat was hard to take. That said, this is the best nonfiction civil rights book I have seen published in at least 20 years.

Coates started his writing career as a journalist, and became the civil rights columnist for The Atlantic. For those Caucasians that advise Black folk to just get over this nation’s ugly history because slavery has been gone for 150 years, he has a response. Pull up your socks and be ready. To Bill Cosby and Patrick Moynihan and anybody else that wants to blame the high poverty level on the demise of the Black family, look out. And for anyone that seriously believes that the election of Barack Obama to the presidency is proof that America’s institutional racism is dead and gone, step back a minute.

When Coates sets out to make a point, he comes armed for conflict. Not only is he searing eloquent, his research is hard to dispute. For white folk that hold themselves blameless for what their ancestors have done, he wonders why we feel so free to claim our veterans every May and November and yet pretend that our white bedsheeted predecessors have nothing to do with us.

He has a point.

For those of us that are persuaded that the election of Donald Trump to the White House is more about economics and the unemployment of poor white people or the abrasive nature of Ms. Clinton than about white supremacy, Coates has some cogent arguments that run in the other direction. It’s enough to make you stop and think, and that’s why I am tardy with my review. I read in small bites, and then I had to reconsider some of my own conclusions. And although it stings, great writing does this. If we are paying attention, we have to realign some of our own thinking in order to meet the reality this book presents.

Coates is bemused by Caucasian readers that love his work. I understand his bewilderment; nobody likes to hear bad news about the characters of their ancestors, let alone about themselves. But if a thing needs doing, it needs to be done right, and in that respect, Coates is undeniable.

Highly recommended to everyone genuinely interested in civil rights in the USA.

Until five months ago, I had never heard of Ta-Nehisi Coates. I started seeing ads for his latest book We Were Eight Years in Power on my digital version of The New Yorker. Last week, I was sent an advance copy of the book to review (it hit bookstores on October 7th but I received an unedited version) and my world turned upside down.

The book consists of eight lengthy essays that he wrote for the Atlantic where he is now a Senior Editor. Each article represents one year that Barak Obama was President. He prefaces each one with a present day writing telling us specifics of why he wrote what he wrote and how he sees the article now, 2017. He ends with an Epilogue about President Trump "our first white president". The Guardian review calls him "the laureate of black lives".

I am a seventy year old white woman living in Paris, France. I was raised in academia, my father taught at Princeton University. I say that I was released from behind Ivy League walls at eighteen years old a very naive young woman. I have always considered myself a liberal (my sister says that is a four letter word) and always voted Democrat. Never have I felt more naive and uneducated about the realities of the class system in the United States than reading Coate's book.

Coates has a unique way of presenting his material in a New Yorker-type style while searing you with some very unpleasant truths. Truths that, the minute I read them, I knew were true though I've had my head in the sand for a long time. The Guardian says "Coates has the rare ability to express (it) in clear prose that combines historical scholarship with personal experience of being black in today’s America." He calls all types of slavery, the Klu Klux Klan, White Supremacy 'Domestic Terrorism' which, of course, it is. Slavery was outlawed over 150 years ago, Blacks have the right to vote and the Civil Rights movement, of which I partook, was supposed to have ended all the inequality. Yet Blacks are consistently killed and the killers not indicted. Laws have been passed to stop Blacks from voting at the polls. Coates probably sited 100 instances of domestic terrorism. Some I knew about, many I did not. All done in the name of keeping the White class the superior class.

His eighth chapter was specifically about Obama. What made Obama unique and able to become President of the United States was the fact that he was raised by three white people who adored him and let him know how much he was loved. He was not educated to be suspicious of white people. He was not cautioned about going into certain neighborhoods that were too dangerous for black people. He was encouraged to learn and encouraged to strive for the best. Coates stated that 71% of Republicans still believe he is Muslim and many still believe he was not born in the United States. Trump began his political career by openly challenging Obama to produce his birth certificate. For years, he stated everywhere he could be heard his "Birther" beliefs. Obama was our first black president. However, if he was not born in the US, then he couldn't be president and for the majority of people who are threatened by the idea of a black president, the string of white presidents remains unbroken.

I couldn't put Coate's book down. I learned that he was a fellow at the American Library in Paris where he wrote parts of his last book "Between the World and Me" I didn't join the Library until after he had left France and want to turn back the clock. I feel cheated. I have watched his interviews on YouTube and his presentations at ALP. He seems a soft spoken man who is very funny and still a bit overwhelmed by his fame. He told Chris Jackson, his editor and publisher of One World books, that it felt like being hit by a Mack Truck. A Mack Truck with money but still a Mack Truck!

Coates is a man who has a lot to be angry about. But he has chosen to channel that energy into educating people like me about "Reality". He is not surprised by a Trump presidency. I was. We Were Eight Years in Power felt like a fist to my gut. It hurt. I needed the painful punch. I didn't choose what color my skin is anymore than Coates did. I have been fortunate. A whole class of my compatriots have not been.

The day after Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new essay collection, We Were Eight Years In Power: An American Tragedy was released, Coates appeared on CBS This Morning to promote it. Towards the end of the segment, Gayle King addresses him. “You’re being called one of America’s best writers on race,” she says. “…I heard you gagged when you heard that.”
“I’m gagging right now,” Coates says, palpable dislike hiding behind an affable grin.
“Okay, would you prefer to be called the black public intellectual?” King asks. “You like that better?”
“No, no, no,” Coates insists.
“What would you like?” Charlie Rose asks.
Without hesitation, Coates responds, “I’d like one day to be the best writer in America, bar none...I have no problem with being black, I actually have no problem with being a black writer. I take great pride in that. But I think when people say things like, ‘You’re the best writer on race,’ it’s to pretend as though I’m not in competition with any other writer.”
It’s a comment full of the kind of self-reflection and forethought that pervades Coates’ work. A former columnist and current national correspondent for The Atlantic, Coates is fully aware of the dangers posed when people start labeling his writing. “The notion that writing about race, which is to say, the force of white supremacy, is marginal and provincial is itself parcel to white supremacy, premised on the notion that the foundational crimes of this country are mostly irrelevant to its existence,” he writes. And indeed, to read the essays in this new compilation and focus only on what Coates says while dismissing how he says it would be to severely underestimate his talents.
We Were Eight Years In Power is comprised of eight essays previously published in The Atlantic. There is one for every year of the Obama presidency, which parallels Coates’ hiring at the publication and his rise to prominence. However, the book is far from homage to Obama’s administration. Coates is not shy about the complicated relationship he has with America’s first black president. He takes Obama to task for his military policies, and for the ways Obama eschewed discussions of race as much as possible. But Coates also acknowledges that he personally has much to credit Obama for: “My contention is that Barack Obama is directly responsible for the rise of a crop of black writers and journalists who achieved prominence during his two terms,” he writes. “I was one of those writers.”
Obama’s presidency is rather like a framing device through which Coates examines his own journey of the last eight years, both as a black man in America and as a writer. In his pieces, he explores topics as varied and wide-ranging as Bill Cosby and Malcolm X, mass incarceration and reparations. While it may be possible to find each essay and read them individually, taken collectively, they form an intriguing portrait of a writer finding his voice and coming into his powers. Before each installment, Coates drafts short biographical sketches of his life at that point and the circumstances that led to writing each one. These snapshots are infused with a personal, narrative touch missing from the essays. While his essays have branded Coates an intellectual, here we see him as a man. He struggles with his craft. He struggles to provide for his partner and young son. He grapples with his voice, and perhaps most significant of all, apologizes for what he got wrong.
As the essays go on, each one grows progressively more assured. The writing becomes more solid, the viewpoints more eloquently argued. The crowning achievement is “The Case for Reparations,” the piece that, by his own admission, solidified Coates’ place as a writer of renown. It’s a sprawling, emotional look at the institutional racism of the US housing market. In it, Coates argues that considering reparations is anathema because it would force Americans to truly level with their racist past. “To ignore the fact that one of the oldest republics in the world was erected on a foundation of white supremacy, to pretend that the problems of a dual society are the same as the problems of unregulated capitalism, is to cover the sin of national plunder with national lying,” he writes.
Coates is a writer who is not content with letting America forget its past sins or never reconcile with its racist history. His points are impossible to ignore. Describing Obama’s election night, Coates writes, “I joined in the spectacle of America – a country that had incorporated the fact of African slavery into is Constitution – handing its standard to a black man of thin résumé and fantastical mien.”
In this book, Coates accomplishes his goal. He emerges not as one of our best writers on race, but as one of our best writers, bar none.

WE WERE EIGHT YEARS IN POWER by Ta-Nehisi Coates received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly and it has been getting quite a bit of attention at our school, too. In support of his local talk at Evanston Public High School (see FAN web site for details and video, when available), we set up a display which included his new Black Panther graphic novels. There was definite interest in this new book of essays, one for each year of the Obama Presidency and others (like "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration") previously published in The Atlantic magazine. Coates appeared Oct. 12 on PBS NewHour to discuss his many projects (see video below):

Relevant Links in online post:
http://www.familyactionnetwork.net/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG9W7g4kYVQ for PBS Interview

Let me just start this review off by saying that I will be covering the writing and my personal reactions in this review. I am not the person who should be analyzing what is good or bad or what is effective or not. When I received a copy of this, I promised myself that I would listen to what the author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, had to say. He obviously knows better than me about what life in America is like as a person of color, as a black man. I have seen a few bad reviews on this book, but they were mostly from people who don't want to understand, who like the world as it is, who choose to stay blind. I am not one of those people. I want the cold hard truth and that is what Coates provides in Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

To start off, this book is formatted really nicely. Each section is a different article Coates wrote for a publication, usually the Atlantic. Each section is preceded by a sort of prologue that explains how he thinks the articles could be better, what he got wrong, how things have changed since Trump was elected, or involves him explaining more about the topics covered or what went into writing each one. I really enjoyed this formatting. It allowed for the reader to know when the topic was going to switch and was just a very accessible format. This is the first nonfiction book I have read in a long time and I appreciated it being split up into parts (or years as it is labeled).

If you take nothing else away from this review, take away this: We Were Eight Years in Power is brilliantly written. It is a beautiful mixture of personal stories, historical facts, lots of research, and great journalism. Some of what the book covered I knew beforehand. Other parts, I had no idea. While there were certain parts of this book that I related to (mainly the moments Coates talks about being a writer and the Jew's call for reparations after the Holocaust), my experience reading this mainly involved shock and horror. I think I mumbled "holy shit" at least once per section. Most of what is in this book is not taught in school in America and that is ridiculous. But considering how we started as a country and how much we haven't grown, it really shouldn't be a surprise. 

I do have an actual list of most of the topics covered in the book, but as that would probably be boring to read, I will name just name a few. Coates covers everything from housing discrimination to slavery to Obama's presidency to respectability politics to reparations. Coming to this book, I knew of Coates from reading his article on reparations, from seeing him on television, and from reading his article "The First White President," which is also the epilogue in the book. 

A lot stands out in this book but four things stand out the most to me.

Parchman farm
When detailing the story of Clyde Ross, a man who grew up in Mississippi in the 1920s and 30s and moved to Chicago to find the same kind of racism and discrimination, Coates tells the story of Ross's brother, Winter, who had a seizure and was then sent by the authorities to Parchman Farm.

Parchman Farm, a twenty-thousand-acre state prison in the Mississippi Delta region. Built at the turn of the century, Parchman was supposed to be a progressive and reformist response to the problem of 'Negro crime.' In fact it was the gulag of Mississippi, an object of terror to African Americans in the Delta. In the early years of the twentieth century, Mississippi Governor James K Vardaman used to amuse himself by releasing black convicts into the surrounding wilderness and hunting them down with bloodhounds. David M. Oshinsky in his book Worse Than Slavery writes, 'Parchman Farm is synonymous with punishment and brutality, as well it should be... Parchman is the quintessential penal farm, the closest thing to slavery that survived the Civil war.'

This is eerily reminiscent of The Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. It also reminds of the horror stories I've read from mental institutions around this time period. This was one of those "holy shit" moments. 

Anecdotes on Slavery
I don't know how to tell you how this affected me, so I am just going to post the excerpt. If you don't feel anything from this, you might want to look into why that is. This excerpt is in Coates's essay The Case for Reparations:

When the wife and children of Henry Brown, a slave in Richmond, Virginia were to be sold away, Brown searched for a white master who might buy his wife and children to keep the family together, He failed:

The next day, I stationed myself by the side of the road, along with the slaves, amounting to three hundred and fifty, were to pass. The purchaser of my wife was a Methodist minister, who was about starting for North Carolina. Pretty soon five waggon-loads of little children passed, and looking at the foremost one, what should I see but a little child, pointing its tiny hand towards me, exclaiming, "There's my father; I knew he would come and bit me good-bye." It was my eldest child! Soon the gang approached in which my wife was chained. I look and beheld her familiar face; but O, reader that glance of agony! may God spare me ever again enduring the excruciating horror of that moment! She passed and came near to where I stood. I seized hold of her hand, intending to bid her farewell; but words failed me; the gift of utterance had fled, and I remained speechless. I followed her for some distance, with her hand grasped in mine, as if to save her from her fate, but I could not speak, and I was obliged to turn away in silence.

In a time when communications were primitive and blacks lacked freedom of movement, the parting
of black families was a kind of murder. Here we find the roots of American wealth and democracy- in the 
for-profit destruction of the most important asset available to any people, the family. The destruction was not
incidental to America's rise; it facilitated that rise.

I think it's safe to say that America and white people have not atoned for this sin, let alone acknowledged that it still lives in our society today.

Stories of mass incarceration
There are multiple stories about people who have been put in jail and their families in the essay, The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Coates speaks about the history of prisons, their conditions becoming worse and worse over the years due to loss of programs and the thought that prisoners "deserve to suffer," and he also speaks about how prison and incarcerating people deeply affects families financially as well as emotionally.

If men and women like Odell [the man Coates talks about in this section of The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration] are cast deep within the barrens of the Gray Wastes, their families are held in a kind of orbit, on the outskirts, by the relentless gravity of the carceral state. For starters, the family must contend with the financial expense of having a loved one incarcerated. Odell's parents took out a second mortgage to pay for their son's lawyer, and then a third. Beyond that, there's the expense of having to make long drives to prisons that are commonly built in rural white regions, far from the incarcerated's family. There's the expense of phone calls, and of constantly restocking an inmate's commissary. Taken together, these economic factors fray many a family's bonds. And then there is the emotional weight, a mix of anger and sadness.

I think it is easy for anyone to see how this could cause the destruction of black families in the same way that slavery did. Families are being torn apart en masse. Coates mentions in the book and cites multiple sources that state how black people are more likely to go to jail at some point in their life. It is almost a rite of passage for some. We can't blame a group of people for not having "traditional" families (mom, dad, kids) when we are partly to blame for tearing them apart.

President Obama
Anyone who was paying attention could see that President Obama's presidency was like no other. He could not talk about race without there being a complete overreaction, he was blocked at every turn by a Republican Congress, called countless blatant and not-so-blatant racist names, and as Coates explains, he had to be better than any other white president before him so he could be treated half as well. After all, "birtherism" is something that did not come up until Barack Obama's presidency. 

Obama's first term has coincided with a strategy of massive resistance on the part of his Republican opposition in the House, and a record number of filibuster threats in the Senate. It would be nice if this were merely a reaction to Obama's politics or his policies - if this resistance truly were, as it is generally described, merely one more sign of our growing "polarization" as a nation. But the greatest abiding challenge to Obama's national standing has always rested on the existential fact that if he had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin. 'The thing is, a black man can't be president in America, given the racial aversion and history that's still out there,' Cornell Belcher, a pollster for Obama, told the journalist Gwen Ifill after the 2008 election. 'However, an extraordinary, gifted, and talented young man who happens to be black can be president.'

Belcher's formulation grants the power of anti-black racism and proposes to defeat it by not acknowledging it...the Obama era, a time marked by a revolution that must never announce itself, by a democracy that must never acknowledge the weight of race, even while being shaped by it.

Coates explains a few times how wrong the people are who blame the election of Trump on poor white people or the economic hardships among whites. Racism is to blame and we won't be able to really understand the election until we recognize that fact.

If you couldn't tell, I really enjoyed this book. I encourage everyone to read it. For me, it was a good way to get back into the nonfiction genre. The passages where Coates talks about his writing, his process, and what being a writer means to him stood out to me for obvious reasons. Those are the sections I will go back to for writing inspiration. But the ultimate message I took away from this book is that America needs to recognize our history, accept that it happened, and start to deal with it or we will continue to repeat it. We say we are for freedom and liberty, but unless we acknowledge the horror and terror white people inflicted on black people and try to make amends, that will continue to be a lie.

I would love to hear your thoughts, especially from others who have read Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. If I got something wrong, please let me know.

Thank you, NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Random House One World for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Prior to reading this collection of essays, my knowledge of Mr. Coates was limited to comments from him I had heard on news programs or read in newspaper articles or quotes from him that people had posted or shared on Facebook.  My opinion of him was not the greatest.  I requested to read and review “We Were Eight Years in Power” expecting that I would find much with which to disagree.  However, I think there is value in learning opposing viewpoints and Mr. Coates is regarded in some circles as one of the leading intellectuals in the US, so his essays seemed a good choice. In the end, I found less to disagree with than I expected. I am glad I took the opportunity to read "We Were Eight Years In Power."

While the legacy of slavery, racism, white supremacy, discriminatory policies has certainly negatively impacted black communities, both individually and collectively, to a significant degree, I think Mr. Coates goes to far in his argument that a legacy of white supremacy is the primary cause of the ongoing struggles of the black community. However, that is a debate far too involved and far too deep for a book review.

One of the strengths of this book is Mr. Coates discussion of his life, including the choices he wished he had not made (such as dropping out of college), how he happened to be at the right/write place at the right time with the presidential aspirations and then successful election of Barack Obama, and how his writing and his views on American history, racism, white supremacy, etc. grew and evolved as he had increased opportunities to study and research the issues, talk with prominent black thinkers and writers, and talk with people who had experienced specific forms of racism (such as mass segregation of housing in Chicago) and how those forms of racism were rooted in government policies.

I particularly liked his discussion of James Baldwin and Malcolm X. Although I have not read any of Baldwin's books, I am familiar with his reputation as both a prominent black writer and social critic and as a great writer in general. However, Mr. Coates discussion of James Baldwin and how Baldwin's writing influenced Coates thinking and his aspirations as a writer provided a greater understanding of Baldwin's importance.

As for Malcolm X, I have never seen the movie or read his biography. My knowledge of Malcolm X was limited to what I had read in history books or magazine articles or what I had heard on television programs, which was not the most flattering, as it tended to focus on his association with the black power/black nationalist movement and the Nation of Islam. In my lifetime, the Nation of Islam has been led by the virulent racist Louis Farrakhan, so being associated with the Nation of Islam is a strong negative. However, Mr. Coates portrays a more nuanced picture of Malcolm X that acknowledges both his strengths and his flaws and portrays an individual deserving of more respect and consideration than my previous limited knowledge would have warranted.

I think two of the more compelling essays are the essay that talks about housing discrimination, with a focus on Chicago, and the essay on mass incarceration.

I think Mr. Coates depiction of Barack Obama, both in terms of his formative years and rise to the presidency and in terms of his eight years as president, is fairly decent. There is a lot of truth to how Barack Obama's unconventional upbringing and opportunities, as well as his status as half white/half black, allowed him to navigate a white-dominated political world and appeal both to white and black communities in a way that a black man growing up in Baltimore (where Mr. Coates was born and raised) or Philadelphia or Chicago, or the Deep South would be unable to do so.

However, Mr. Coates seems to display some naivety about Barack Obama character when it comes to political gain, in particular Obama's willingness to overlook "dirty politics" by his campaign and supporters to advance his career. Obama won the U.S. Senate seat for Illinois because his campaign pressured the Chicago Tribune to release damaging information about the Democratic candidate who was leading in the polls for the primary (Blair Hull), which forced the candidate to drop out, and then was involved in the Tribune's publication of damaging information about Jack Ryan, the Republican nominee, forcing him to drop out late in the race (a problem the IL GOP compounded by recruiting an outsider to replace him on the ballot). If not for the dirty dealing, Blair Hull likely wins the Democratic nomination and the Senate race and Barack Obama likely remains a state politician.

Mr. Coates also displays naivety about the Obama Administration. He repeatedly comments about how President Obama's eight years in office were largely free of scandal. He is certainly correct that President Obama and his family displayed a sense of morality that was absent in the prior Democratic Administration (Bill Clinton) and his daughters avoided the embarrassing antics of the Bush twins (although the younger ages of the Obama daughters certainly helped). However, the Obama Administration had some rather significant scandals that the President never really took seriously or properly addressed, such as Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the abusive behavior of the IRS towards conservative organizations, and Benghazi. The Civil Rights Division of the DOJ under Eric Holder displayed a strong racialist agenda, alleging racism in situations were it was present, but also situations were it was not present, and ignoring or downplaying civil rights violations when the victims were groups disfavored by liberals. The Obama Administration also prosecuted whistleblowers and journalists under the Espionage Act at an unprecedented rate (more than all prior administrations combined).

To say Ta-Nehisi Coates covers a lot of ground in We Were Eight Years in Power is a true understatement. This book has done more to explain to me the state of the U.S. today than several of the other books I’ve read since the election combined.

Coates reaches back to historical events and eras. He talks about his fascination with the Civil War, how he studied, as well as visited battlefields and exhibits. He details the difficulties of life in post-World War II Chicago, especially the West Side neighborhood of North Lawndale. In each time period, Coates discusses the predatory policies of governments and businessmen towards African Americans.

Coates also covers the “tough on crime” political era, and how it led to today’s mass incarceration of so many millions of black and brown people. This is done with a small nod to Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, which is a more thorough investigation of the topic.

He contrasts the presidency of Barack Obama with his successor, while focusing more on the former. In the last essay, Coates takes on our current political and economic situation. He connects 45 to the white men of the past, with the vicious, racist behavior. He doesn’t give the liberal left a pass. This is a moment when Coates lets his anger really show.

If I felt angry while reading the book, it was at myself, my country, and other white people. I am more embarrassed than ever. Reading his work makes me alternately nostalgic and depressed. Nostalgic for the years of the Obama presidency, and depressed by the behavior of white people (especially white men) during all of history.

I appreciated also how the author uses his introductory essays to discuss the progress of his own writing career. In fact, that progression is evident in the eight essays previously published in The Atlantic. Coates connects his thinking and writing to other esteemed black intellectual writers like James Baldwin and W.E.B. Du Bois. And yet he is self-effacing about this comparison.

In terms of writing style, Coates can be elegant as much as he can write with density and complication. There were many times I had to reread sentences and paragraphs to grasp the entire meaning. Since I read the advanced reader’s copy, I don’t want to put quotes here in case they’ve changed in the final version. But know that I have highlighted many passages, some entire paragraphs. There is so much here to read and then revisit. So much to discuss and ponder. It’s absolutely another five-star read from Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Thanks to NetGalley and One World, Random House Publishing Group for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Faithful followers of Ta-Nehisi Coates at The Atlantic may think there is no reason to read We Were Eight Years in Power because it publishes eight of his articles from each year of the Obama presidency, but they would be wrong. I read those articles when they were written, but he introduces each one by noting how his ideas have changed and what he thinks he got right or wrong in the original. Reading in retrospective casts them in a different context and, let’s be honest, Coates essays are packed with historical insight and the kind of original thinking that demands close and repeated reading.

The introductions tell us what was happening in America and in Coates’ development as a writer when the articles were written. This frames the essays anew with the retrospective knowledge that Obama’s presidency so incited racism in white America chose the most openly racist, most obviously corrupt, and most belligerently ignorant white man they could find to replace him.

The essays Coates chose are also among his most important, the evisceration of revisionist Civil War history, the call for reparations, they exposure of white fear of black success, and the devastation of the carceral state. They are worth reading and rereading to remind ourselves that we have to reckon with white supremacy if we ever hope to be free and democratic country.

Coates also deftly handles the ridiculous claims that economic insecurity and elitist condescension led to Trump’s success. White people did not vote for Trump because their feelings were hurt by Saturday Night Live. They voted for Trump to elevate and sustain white supremacy.



I have admired Ta-Nehisi Coates for a long time and read his blog, bookmarking some of his articles on the Civil War for when someone talks about the Civil War being about tariffs or states’ rights or anything but white supremacy. It can be hard to read his thoughts because there is no false comfort that that arc of history is bending toward justice any time soon. This is not a hopeful book, but that is what makes it important. Truth is not always hopeful and more than anything else, Americans need to face the truth about white supremacy and how it poisons our country.

I received a copy of Were Eight Years in Power from the publisher from NetGalley.

Very solid and strong book about the state of affairs as we know it. The writing style makes this book easy to read but is also thought provoking at the same time. I truly enjoyed this book. Very powerful and a book that all should read. Thanks to NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the ARC of this book in return for my honest review.

Ta-Nehisi's eighth article in the book just got published in 'The Atlantic' October issue 'The First White President.' Since the articles are available online, why read this book?

I received an advance copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.

In <i>We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy</i>, Coates collects eight articles that he wrote for <i>The Atlantic</i> during the Obama years, along with eight new essays that act as forwards to the older ones. From Bill Cosby to reparations, Coates's thought-provoking arguments are revisited with the benefit of a few years of perspective. If you haven't read the original articles you should read them in this context. However, there is more than enough here for the familiar reader. This work is engaging, honest, and, I think, a must-read.

https://booknormblog.com/2017/10/13/book-review-we-were-eight-years-in-power-an-american-tragedy-by-ta-nehisi-coates/

Posted on October 13, 2017 by Norm Sigurdson
Book Review – We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates has been writing about race for a long time. His big breakthrough was his slender but solid Between the World and Me. It is a long essay addressed to his then 15-year-old son on the subject of blackness and was much lauded, winning the National Book Award in 2015.
His new book, We Were Eight Years in Power, is actually only partially new. It collects eight lengthy essays that Coates wrote for The Atlantic magazine during the Obama years. One essay to represent each year.
The essays are supplemented with new introductions that explain how the essays came about, what Coates was thinking at the time and, quite often, how his thinking has changed since the essay’s original publication.
Some of the essays are already quite familiar and one, 2014’s “The Case for Reparations,” is on its way to becoming a classic. Coates argues for what he calls “moral reparations” rather than a simple cash settlement.
His real point is that Americans, white and black, don’t realize how much of the success of the country today relies on the appropriation of black labour and property from the days of slavery through the Jim Crow era.
For example, he says “In the seven cotton states, one-third of all white income was derived from slavery. By 1840, cotton produced by slave labor constituted 59 percent of the country’s exports.” Now, he insists, is the time to open up a conversation about this imbalance.
Although most of the essays are focused on the present, Coates usually takes a longer view, often looking back to the “original sin” of American slavery and the aftermath of the Civil War. In a sense, he suggests, there will be no true racial equality until the ripple effects from 150 years ago are dealt with.
Slavery and the Civil War are still the great racial divider, he says. “The Civil War is a story for white people— acted out by white people , on white people’s terms— in which blacks feature strictly as stock characters and props,” he writes.
“We are invited to listen, but never to truly join the narrative, for to speak as the slave would, to say that we are as happy for the Civil War as most Americans are for the Revolutionary War, is to rupture the narrative.”
Rupturing the narrative is exactly what Coates wants to do. His earliest essay looks at Bill Cosby’s “black conservatism” at the time when Cosby was decrying the degenerate state of the black community, targeting its rap music, fatherless homes and violence.
Cosby was literally telling black boys to pull their pants up and return to a time when black people had respect for themselves. Coates’s piece on Michelle Obama also takes her to task for hearkening back to a simpler time in American race relations.
For Coates, there never was a golden age for black American life or culture.
“This is our history,” he says. “America is literally unimaginable without white supremacy, without the plundered labor shackled to plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the gifts to popular culture crafted by the plundered, and without those gifts themselves being plundered.”
Coates admits that he was wrong in doubting that America could ever elect a black president. (He quotes his father, a former Black Panther member as saying “Son…you know the country got to be messed up for them folks to give him the job.”)
He also didn’t believe that Donald Trump was electable, a view President Obama shares with Coates in an interview.
“I have often wondered how I missed the coming tragedy,” Coates writes.”It is not so much that I should have predicted that Americans would elect Donald Trump. It’s just that I shouldn’t have put it past us.”
The book’s title comes from a black South Carolina Congressman, Thomas Miller, from a speech in 1895 when his state was turning from black participation in government to black disenfranchisement.
“We were eight years in power,” Miller said. “We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and placed it upon the road to prosperity.”
But the racial pendulum swung away from racial progress, just as Coates believes it is swinging away again from Obama to Trump.
In the end, Coates is clear-eyed about the cycles of American history, but he is not discouraged.
“Our story is a tragedy,” he concludes, although “that belief does not depress me. It focuses me.”
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates, One World, Random House Penguin Canada, 400pp.

We Were Eight Years in Power is provocative, thoughtful, and powerful, containing several essays Coates produced for the Atlantic during the Obama years, and accompanied by recent retrospectives in which the author adds autobiographical content and reflections on the overall staying power of his writings. This book helped me and challenged me to think more carefully about race, while at the same time calling into question many of my assumptions about prosperity and power. As someone who is increasingly trying to understand different perspectives in order to advocate effectively for justice for all people, I have found Coates to be a lucid, disturbing, and unignorable voice. His arguments have moral force, and while I do not agree with him on every point, I nevertheless find his arguments worthy of engagement and debate. Read this book.

A very difficult book to read as a white middle class man. But a very necessary one. Pretty much every page gave me pause to think.