His portraits of the Obamas-both Barack and Michelle-are fascinating for Coates’s ambivalence towards their use of respectability politics. Though sympathetic to the notion of black self-reliance, Coates is basically critical of this strategy-first, because he believes it has not and will never work and second, because it is deeply unjust to ask a disenfranchised people to earn their own enfranchisement. Washington-that if African Americans work hard, strive for an education, and adhere to middle-class norms, then racism will disappear. This is the notion-popular at least since the time of Booker T. Much of the other essays are dedicated to criticizing two principal rivals to this strategy: Respectability Politics, and Class-Based Politics.įirst, Respectability Politics. The kernel of this argument is expressed in the finest and most famous essay in this collection, “The Case for Reparations”: namely, that America must reckon with its racist past honestly and directly if we are ever to overcome white supremacy. Though the essays tackle diverse topics-Bill Cosby, the Civil War, Michelle Obama, mass incarceration-they successfully build upon one another into a single argument.

And that voice is remarkable.īut this book is far more than that. Even on that narrow basis, alone, this book is absorbing, as it shows the struggles of a young writer to hone his craft and find his voice. The result is, among other things, a surprisingly writerly book-and by that I mean a book written about writing-a kind of Bildungsroman of his literary life. But Coates frames each one with a kind of autobiographical sketch of his life leading up to its writing. The bulk of this book consists of eight essays, all published in The Atlantic, one per year of the Obama presidency. Ta-Nehisi Coates has turned what could have been a routine re-publication of old essays into a genuine work of art. Racism was not a singular one-dimensional vector but a pandemic, afflicting black communities at every level, regardless of what rung they occupied. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates Running the (Full) M… on The Madrid Half-MarathonĢ023: New Year… on From Gold to Glory: A Slice of…Ģ023: New Year… on Summertime in Andalucía: Three…Ģ023: New Year… on Summertime in Andalucía: …Ģ023: New Year… on Summertime in Andalucía: Jerez…

Summertime in Andalucía: Jerez and Cádiz.

We are eight years in power