His curiosity is vivid. We are barreling toward disaster.But at times his historical compositions are too facile. Over the course of the book, he shares his journey from a not-even-making-ends-meet blogger to a man widely regarded as the most important contemporary black writer. Coates powerfully examines the events of the Obama era from his intimate and revealing perspective—the point of view of a young writer who begins the journey in an unemployment office in Harlem and ends it in the Oval Office, interviewing a president.“We were eight years in power” was the lament of Reconstruction-era black politicians as the American experiment in multiracial democracy ended with the return of white supremacist rule in the South. Other commentators make the mistake of thinking that to accept the authorial and authoritative voices is to banish uncertainty: to be sure about some things requires appearing sure about everything. We Were Eight Years. But something is lost in the depiction of only two. He describes his many blunders, his awe and his post-facto misgivings and pride. An American Tragedy. In choosing this title, Coates makes plain his view that, post-Obama, the US is living under a nationalised form of a redemption government.No non-academic writer today has a keener sense of the relevance of history to the problems about which he writes. “We Were Eight Years in Power” is the work of Coates as a fabulist. One senses a genuine interest in, and curiosity about, the ways in which historical forces, always subject to contingencies, have moved us to the place where we presently stand. It was his format and venue, part of his path to a celebrated journalistic career.
Loading... Autoplay When autoplay is enabled, a … And it was hard to imagine his “we” referred to Democrats or liberals.Coates goes back to beginnings, from his youth to middle age, and from 2008 to 2017.
Each of the essays is introduced with the author's reflections. Ta-Nehisi Coates's We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy collects eight essays originally written for the Atlantic and published over the course of Barack Obama's presidency.
We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy is a collection of essays by Ta-Nehisi Coates originally from The Atlantic magazine between 2008 and 2016 over the course of the American Barack Obama administration. However, his jeremiads and eschewing of hope (except in the case of Obama) also bring to mind more ominous American voices: ones like Cotton Mather and Richard Wright.The dance of the book, which brings him to seemingly different positions depending on the paragraph, can be hard to reconcile. It includes the titles that launched his career: "The Case for Reparations" and "The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration".
Even poor white citizens who could have joined their black peers to shake the economic hierarchy that kept white elites in charge and non-elite whites near the bottom of the heap (just above blacks), in atavistic self-defence mode, opted for racial solidarity rather than economic advancement. • We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy is published by Jonathan Cape.