We Were Eight Years in Power: Everything was bright. Everything was rising. Everything was a dream

This book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. And I picked up this book with certain expectations, coming from Coates earlier work Between the World and Me. Expectations were exceeded with We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. 

The book is a collection of essays Coates wrote for The Atlantic. Each piece is preceded by its own introductory essay, an explanation of where Coates is now and his current thoughts on the piece. These introductions were themselves basically their own essays (in case you're worried it's not worth it to pick up a collection of essays published elsewhere). Coates has become the go-to writer when it comes to discuss race in America.

These can be difficult essays to read. Not difficult to understand but to take in, intellectually, emotionally. There were a lot of emotions as I was reading these: anger, embarrassment, disgust. Not at what he's saying but the truths he's calling out, things that I from y position of privilege I haven't really had to think about. Things I should think about. Things that I was nodding vigorously to. I did have to take a break in the middle of reading this. Pick up something light because there is a lot here and burnout is real.

The essays include:
"This Is How We Lost to the White Man"
American Girl
Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War?
The Legacy of Malcom X
Fear of a Black President
The Case for Reparations
The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration
My President Was Black

I feel like I'm the wrong person to review this. There's nothing I can add. I can just say that this should be reading for everyone.

I see the fight against sexism, racism, poverty, and so on finding their union not in synonymity but in their ultimate goal - a world more humane.

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Title quote location 683

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. One World, 2017. NetGalley

Between the World and Me: Soft or hard, love was an act of heroism

It's been a while since I read this so I know my memories aren't as sharp and my thoughts aren't going to be as coherent as if I had just reviewed this right away, so apologies in advance that whatever I'm about to say is totally not going to live up to what this book deserves.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates has been one of those books that had been on my periphery since it came out. It's won awards and Toni Morrison said it's required reading and it's usually a good idea to listen to her. Lately there'd been a copy sitting on my co-worker's desk. And since I've been working on expanding my reading horizons and meeting my resolution goals*, I asked him if I could borrow it. Of course I asked him JUST has he had lent it to someone else, but one of my other co-workers had a copy (see, it's everywhere) and she lent it to me. And here we are.

For those who don't know, the book is a letter from Coates to his son in the wake of the rash of murders of black boys at the hands of the police. The book is part autobiographical, telling the story of his difficult childhood in a world that forced you to be tough to survive. He discusses the legacy, the heritage of racism that pervades the country. How the destruction can be swift (Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin) or it could be a death by a thousand cuts as need to always be on guard takes its toll on a person.

He talks about a friend of his, Prince Jones, who was killed by an undercover police officer, who was not charged for the crime, a narrative that is all-too-familiar. And how Jones's murder was just one more case, the type of thing that keeps black parents up at night worried about their children and wondering if there is anything that can be done to keep them safe.

[My mother] knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine. And no one would be brought to account for this destruction, because my death would not be the fault of any human, but the fault of some unfortunate but immutable fact of "race," imposed upon an innocent country by the inscrutable judgement of invisible gods. The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, helpless agent of our world's physical laws. 

The book is not particularly hopeful, but it doesn't advocate giving up.

I urge you to struggle. Struggle for the memory of your ancestors. Struggle for wisdom. Struggle for the warmth of The Mecca. Struggle for your grandmother and grandfather, for your name. But do not struggle for the Dreamers. Hope for them. Pray for them, if you are so moved. But do not pin your struggle on their conversion. 

It's not an easy read by any stretch, but it is an important one. And one I'm happy to have read.

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*Read more books by POC authors, non-US authors, translations, and/or books published before 2000. Oddly enough it's that last goal that has been the hardest to meet, but also the one I put the least effort into.

Title quote from page 61

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. Between the World and Me. Spiegal & Grau. 2015.