We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

Short Review: This is a re-packaged version of 8 years of Atlantic Essays, most of them cover stories. I had read most of them previously to reading them here. If you have previously read many of these you may not want to pick up the books. But I am glad that I did because I was interested in Coates' introductions to each of the essays as much as the essays themselves. The introductions were occasionally personal, sometimes historical, but usually also evaluative of the essays. Coates is self-reflective and can see where he has grown and changed. That self reflectiveness is helpful in an author.

The main theme of the book is the ongoing power of white supremacy in the US. The last essay on Donald Trump's rise is probably the most reflective of that point. But essentially all of the essays are about that. Starting with Bill Cosby's lectures toward the black community and the profile of Michelle Obama to the more famous reparations article and mass incarceration articles these are all articles written by a black man in the United States, a place where personal and systemic racism still is very present.

Coates' is conscious of his relationship to James Baldwin. (And there is a discussion of his decision to write Between the World and Me as modern edition of The Fire Next Time.) But I think of Baldwin's quote in his Notes of a Native Son about how he cannot help but think about his being a Black man because it impacts his every day life.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/we-were-eight-years-in-power/