But, according to Coates, symbols are meaningful, even if not transformative.Įach chapter is a previously published essay from one year of the first black presidency. It was fleeting and in the main symbolic. Their mythical power was to narrate the state of the nation. 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. The frame of the book, though subtle, is that the Obama presidency facilitated the ascent of black journalists, pundits and public intellectuals who suddenly found themselves placed at the center of public conversations. “We Were Eight Years in Power” is the work of Coates as a fabulist. And it was hard to imagine his “we” referred to Democrats or liberals. I had read enough Coates to know he didn’t believe Barack Obama’s presidency meant black power, notwithstanding the essay he wrote likening Barack Obama to Malcolm X. And yet as I read his new book, “We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy,” I kept racking my brain, trying to figure out who was the “we” who was in power for eight years. Ta-Nehisi Coates enjoys flourish and provocation.
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