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lightreadsWe Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy
4/5. Collection of previously-published work covering the Obama years packaged with new reflections on that work and what brought him there. I'd read most of the prior stuff before, and while there definitely is value in revisiting The Case for Reparations or Fear of a Black President, most of my attention was on the new material and how complex and uncomfortable and tired it is. Not just uncomfortable in that he often rushes to get the criticisms in before the reader can, but also in that he situates the writing of these essays in his long climb towards success, and it's uncomfortable to hear him talk about why he is troubled that "Fear of a Black President" made him with white people and what that meant, when that's the essay that really made me notice him. Also, this book made me confront many of the assumptions I had made about Coates without even thinking about it – I didn't even know I assumed he had a graduate degree in history or political science or similar until this book explained just how wrong I was and why that was a pretty bad assumption.
4/5. Collection of previously-published work covering the Obama years packaged with new reflections on that work and what brought him there. I'd read most of the prior stuff before, and while there definitely is value in revisiting The Case for Reparations or Fear of a Black President, most of my attention was on the new material and how complex and uncomfortable and tired it is. Not just uncomfortable in that he often rushes to get the criticisms in before the reader can, but also in that he situates the writing of these essays in his long climb towards success, and it's uncomfortable to hear him talk about why he is troubled that "Fear of a Black President" made him with white people and what that meant, when that's the essay that really made me notice him. Also, this book made me confront many of the assumptions I had made about Coates without even thinking about it – I didn't even know I assumed he had a graduate degree in history or political science or similar until this book explained just how wrong I was and why that was a pretty bad assumption.