Revisiting ‘We Were Eight Years in Power’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates
By: Cameron Catanzano
Tags: Politics, Trump, Obama, Racism, History

The 1st Year

After Coates’s “Notes From the 1st Year” he chooses to include his Atlantic article, “‘This is How We Lost to the White Man’: The Audacity fo Bill Cosby’s Black Conservatism”.

At first glance, this first selection seems far off from the Obama’s or Reconstruction, but this dive into Cosby takes us into a very important conservative cultural dynamic which proves key to Coates’s later analysis of Obama. Believe it or not, set next to the other essays in this book, “This Is How We Lost to the White Man” can help the reader understand figures like Malcolm X and larger aspects of the black cultural environment in which Obama has come out of.

Ultimately, Coates sees a lot of positive attributes in Malcolm and eventually Obama, but if you can’t tell by the word “Audacity”, Coates frequently finds himself on the other side of arguments with such “Black Conservatism” and he doesn’t hold back in this first essay.

The 2nd Year

After Coates’s “Notes From the 2nd Year,” he includes a bio he wrote for Michelle Obama during the early stages of the first presidential campaign, “American Girl”. However, this essay also lays the groundwork for another important lens Coates uses to understand Barack, the South Side of Chicago.

Although this essay looks particularly at Michelle’s own roots in the South Side, the traditions and uniqueness of this community play another key role in Coates’s understanding of Barack’s rise to the presidency and he often references the South Side throughout the book. To Coates, Obama’s rise to become “the first black president” was as much about the South Side community he rooted himself in as it was about his own personal achievement and unique multi-racial background.

“The first black congressmen elected in the twentieth century were South Siders Oscar De Priest and his successor Arthur Mitchell. For years, they were the only black congressmen. The only two serious African American presidential campaigns — those of Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama — came out of the South Side. Indeed, Barack Obama, Louis Farrakhan, and Jesse Jackson all lived or worked within a ten-minute drive of each other.”

The 3rd Year

After “Notes From The 3rd Year,” Coates selects “Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War” for that year’s essay. In addition to taking a deep and serious look at our history and shining more light on the context of reconstruction, this one is emotionally POWERFUL.

I grew up in a world that may have considered the confederacy “bad,” but shied away from the grand Tolkien-esque narratives of “Good vs. Evil” that we ascribe to WWII. Coates delivers that narrative in “Why Do So Few Blacks Study The Civil War” and it stirred my soul.

“The belief that the Civil War wasn’t for us was the result of the country’s long search for a narrative that could reconcile white people with each other, one that would avoid what professional historians now know to be true: that one group of Americans attempted to raise a country wholly premised on property in Negroes, and that another group of Americans, including many Negroes, stropped them.”

But despite the “Good vs. Evil” sentiments, Coates doesn’t shy away from criticizing the North as well.

“… For the blameless North, it throws up the failed legacy of appeasement of slaveholders, the craven willingness to bargain on the backs of black people, and the unwillingness, in the Reconstruction years, to finish what the war started.”

By the end of this essay, Coates paints a picture of the American Civil War that mirrors popular perceptions of the American Revolutionary War, and he includes quotes by Frederick Douglas to give it that weight of importance.

“It was a great thing to achieve American independence when we numbered three millions. But it was a greater thing to save this country from dismemberment and ruin when it numbered thirty millions.”

In our contemporary context, this essay contributes a lot to the conversation on confederate flags and statues, but it also offers a historical perspective on the current protests and the more violent aspects that have attracted headlines.

“For realists, the true story of the Civil War illuminates the problem of ostensibly sober-minded compromise with powerful, and intractable, evil. For radicals, the wave of white terrorism that followed the war offers lessons on the price of revolutionary change… (and) White Americans finding easy comfort in nonviolence and the radical love of the civil rights movement must reckon with the unsettling fact that black people in this country achieved the rudiments of their freedom through the killing of whites.”

The 4th Year

After “Notes From The 4th Year,” Coates chooses “The Legacy of Malcolm X: Why His Vision Lives on In Barack Obama” as that year’s essay. It is easy to reduce Malcolm into a caricature in perpetual debate with another caricature of MLK, but there is more under the surface.

I’ve studied Malcolm X before, but “The Legacy of Malcolm X” may still be the essay I learned the most from in We Were Eight Years In Power. It helped me to build a bigger picture of Malcolm, Obama, black conservatism, and even the concept of black excellence.

Coates’s view of Barack still has another 4 years to develop, but this essay is a crucial “starting point” to that understanding. Coates will never ignore the policy failures that he saw in Obama, but the biggest success Coates saw in the first family was their accomplishment for black excellence and culture.

The 5th Year

After “Notes From The 5th Year” Coates chooses “Fear of a Black President”, and the spirit of this essay can be found in one quote:

“(The Obama-era) A time marked by a revolution that must never announce itself, by a democracy that must never acknowledge the weight of race, even while being shaped by it. Barack Obama governs a nation enlightened enough to send an African American to the White House, but not enlightened enough to accept a black man as its president.”

Here is where I think Coates’s critiques of Obama’s conservatism and policy first become most nuanced. To a liberal looking back, it is easy to point at moments when Obama shied away from using his bully pulpit to address racism. However, it seems that on every occasion Obama said something to remind us of his blackness, all hell broke loose — and attention turned away from his policy agenda.

During one such controversy, Obama said this to Coates,

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed… but nobody’s been paying much attention to health care”

The truth is, Obama did a lot to try and hide his blackness because of the “problems” it would create for his work. I’ve talked in another post about Obama’s affinity toward the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and this is a place where it really shines through.

To give you a sense of Niebuhr, here is a quote of Obama referring to his work in a New York Times Article.

“I take away… the compelling idea that there’s serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain. And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things. But we shouldn’t use that as an excuse for cynicism and inaction. I take away … the sense we have to make these efforts knowing they are hard, and not swinging from naïve idealism to bitter realism.”

Obama strived for that perfect balance between naïve idealism and bitter realism, and this tight rope was extended to how he addressed race as president.

Obama fully understood the restraints of racism in the United States. Yet, within those restraints, Obama was most concerned with affecting as much practical change as was possible; he chose to make sacrifices. At times, Obama avoided race in hopes of holding together a winning political coalition in a majority white country.

But to Coates, this tightrope walk of avoiding blackness finally sees its glaring limitations at the levels of the presidency. Obama may have been the best at it, but that tactic was never enough.

“Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.”

The 6th Year

The 6th year is an important year. This year marks the moment when things begin coming together for Coates and his art. In earlier years, he blogs and reads to challenge himself and master his craft, and up until this point, Coates critiques the execution of each selected essay. He was always in the process of better translating the music in his head to words on a page, but his 6th year essay, “A Case for Reparations” marks the first moment he feels he did it right.

“A Case for Reparations” is a powerful essay. If you get the chance, definitely read it at The Atlantic. I read it a few years ago as part of a poli-sci class and it’s changed my thinking ever since. But for now, I’d like to take this section to focus on the important personal dynamics that Coates explores in Year 6.

Creatively, all the pieces come together when he writes “A Case for Reparations”, and the article accelerates his career to what it is now. In addition, his newfound popularity puts Coates’s career on Obama’s radar like never before — setting up a new stage in their relationship.

Coates had always publicly disagreed with Obama, but now, Coates was notable enough that Obama (the former law professor that he was) began inviting Coates to the Oval Office for private face-to-face debates. In many ways, “The Case for Reparations” is a response to the politics of evasion and Obama’s tightrope tactics laid out in “Fear of a Black President”. So, it makes sense that Obama felt a need to challenge him.

The 7th Year

After “Notes from the 7th Year” Coates includes “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration”. Of all the essays in We Were Eight Years In Power, this one may be the most relevant to the ongoing dialogue regarding policing and criminal justice reform. As the title would suggest, this essay is laser-focused on the impact of our “carceral state” and the war on drugs. However, this essay can also serve as the basis for a well deserve liberal response toward the importance of families.

It’s far too often that the influence of healthy and unhealthy families becomes a talking point exclusively touted by conservative voices blaming the black community for their own problems. However, Coates takes a dive into the role history and government policy play in the destruction of black families, causing a negative ripple effect to cripple those communities.

The 8th Year

Finally, Coates finishes the Obama-era with “Notes From the 8th Year” and his essay “My President Was Black”. After eight years of mildly criticizing Barack Obama, Coates comes out with an appreciative view of the man. Coates never throws on rose-colored glasses and “converts” over to Obama’s world view or politics, but (with Trump’s election looming) Coates takes the time to appreciate just how important Obama was to him and to the country.

“Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing “mere” about symbols. The power embedded in the word nigger is also symbolic. Burning crosses do not literally raise the poverty rate, and the Confederate flag does not directly expand the wealth gap.”

To top it off, this is the first chapter where Coates really dives into the heart of Obama’s biography. Of all the essays, “My President Was Black” taught me the most about Obama’s life and upbringing. It was a heck of a way to close things out.