28. We Were Eight Years In Power

Ta-Nehisi Coates. 2017.

I really wanted to like this collection of essays. Maybe I have just read too much by Coates in the last couple of years, but I just didn't find enough new here to draw me in.  It feels like he is rehashing the same handful of brilliant ideas and thoughts that were new and intriguing five years ago. 

I was particularly disappointed to see a discussion about Bill Cosby with barely a nod to putting Cosby's rhetoric on race in the context of his being a serial rapist.  To talk about him as contributing to the race conversation in this country without grappling with the fact that the vast majority of his victims were white women is unfathomable to me.  I know that this is a complicated fact that doesn't fit in with the history of false allegations against Black men, but if you are going to talk about Cosby's influence on conservative Black thought around how Black men need to take responsibility for contributing to their own oppression, ignoring the misogyny of Cosby's entire life outside of his onscreen Dr. Huxtable persona felt like dodging the most important conversation.  Moreover, Coates is definitely up to the challenge of dealing with the nuance of the Cosby case and I left this section of the book somewhat aghast at this dodge.

So, the book got off to a rough start for me from which I never fully recovered.  He complained about the Obamas not providing him a lot of interview time and about their watered down politics.  Again, nothing new to see here, but rather as rehashing of the same critiques he has previously written about.

Not recommended.

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