Good Negro Government

Many thanks to Adrian for jump starting NCBC’s 17th year with a lively and timely discussion of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ latest offering, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.

We spent a couple hours covering the highlights of the eight essays, Cornel West’s controversial criticism of the author and his work, and how well the author met his stated intentions.

Here are our outtakes and ratings:

• Adrian’s Rating: 4 - Appreciated the inclusion of historical record and statistics forming the basis of his analysis; methodical accounting of how a society based on white supremacy is threatened by the very idea of black competence. Enjoyed the chapter introductions that talked about his own life changes during those eight years; intros showed the effect the Obama presidency had on him personally while the essays discussed larger, societal implications of black governance vis-a-vis Obama.

• Richelle’s Rating: 2 - Incoherent and Coates fails to connect the essays. Relies too heavily on statistics and facts without citation at the cost of in-depth analysis. Coates maintains that his writing style is meant to embody the spirit of hip-hop but fails to effectively incorporate the art form into his work. Also, essays lack analysis through an intersectional lens.

• Andre’s Rating: 2.5 - Interesting subject matter. However, the essays were not tied together and Coates offered no solutions.

• Juliette's Rating: 3 - Nothing new.

• Gwen’s Rating: 3 - Topics were interesting but not new.

• Meka - Abstained/Did Not Read

• Nessette - Abstained/Did Not Read

• Shawn - Abstained/Did Not Read

• Cindy - Abstained from rating due to not reading entire book; however found it to be an exhausting read. Seemed that Coates put forth many different arguments and facts but his analysis was rife with holes.

• Phyllis’s Rating, Comments, and Outtakes: 3.5 - Exhausting and lacking in cohesion. Coates seemed out of his depth and could benefit from formal scholarly study/rigor.

A Few Final Thoughts, Notable Quotes, and Observations from Phyllis:

• Coates is a solid and very passionate writer, but I think he's better when 'writing from the heart' - Between the World and Me, etc; because in these essays, I felt there was a bit of rambling, loss of focus, and basically "over-writing" - if that's an appropriate term.

• Although technical proficient - at times I found some of the statistics were a bit much; he could have included them in the bibliography as reference.

• All of this is compounded because of the authenticity of the stories and horrific impact it had on PoC lives/livelihood. But someone must tell the story…and he's taken the challenge.

Regarding Coates’ Access to Obama:

• I thought these essays would have been based off of in-depth, one-on-one interviews with Obama and although he cites/mentions his encounters with the president (albeit few and far between), I was left a bit disappointed from that perspective. Instead he relied on the same public speeches, his books/autobiography and other biographies, etc to understand the man, his policies, etc. and the challenges he faced.

• In that, in a few cases, I enjoyed the "intros" more than the essays.

Regarding My Expectations: Problem Solving/ Suggestions/Answers:

• He admittedly confesses he has no answers to societal problems/ills, historical wrongs, etc. - but I was expecting "something" from someone who's spent so much time studying/researching history and having access to Obama, leaders, and intellectuals. Not necessarily on a national/global scale, but at "some" level offer something; share his own ideas and suggestions to address the challenges and problems he outlines.

Phyllis's Favorite Essays:

• Why Do So Few Blacks Study the Civil War. Emphasized the trend towards revisionist history (War Between Brothers/Misunderstanding, etc) which is clearly wrong and intentionally misleading.

• The Case For Reparations. The numbers, the situations, the wrongs, the overall plunder of Black life eloquently described in this essay leaves little room for questions other than how and when will reparations be executed.

Some Notable Quotes

• "White people are, in some profound way, trapped; it took generations to make them white, and it will take more to unmake them."

• Prophetic: In 1895, South Carolina congressman Thomas Miller appealed to the State’s constitutional convention with these words – ‘We were eight years in power. We had built schoolhouses, established charitable institutions, built and maintained the penitentiary system, provided for the education of the deaf and dumb, rebuilt the ferries. In short, we had reconstructed the State and place it upon the rode to prosperity.’”

• ”In short, Obama, his family, and his administration were a walking advertisement for the ease with which black could be fully integrated into the unthreatening mainstream of American culture, politics, and myth. And that was the problem.”

• ”I have often wondered how I missed the coming tragedy. It is not so much that I should have predicted that Americans would elect Donald Trump. It’s just that I shouldn’t have put it past us.”

NCBC Group/Average Rating: 3.0

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