We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

Coates is equally depressing and inspiring. Depressing because his view is somewhat bleak: there is no easy solution for white supremacy. Inspiring because simply articulating the manner in which people are racialized and taken advantage of over and over again is itself a triumphant act.

I wonder if this is why people of colour appreciate Coates: he can describe the many little and great concessions we make every day without the faux-inspirational rhetoric of a political agenda of progress. For Coates, and frankly many of us, nothing is all that surprising about modern race relations. From the Civil War to Trump, the practice of white supremacy is generally pretty straightforward. From the case for reparations the first white president, Coates keeps pointing out the same things: institutions make it really easy to entrench white power and excuse the disenfranchisement of blacks. The apologetics for the poor white working class that elected Trump are really nothing new or surprising. They're part of tradition and that tradition is one of white supremacy.

What I found unexpectedly interesting in this book is Coates' personal thoughts and development through the eight years of the Obama presidency. It's not just growth but also a realization that expectations and reality are never linear or progressive.