{"id":121233,"date":"2017-10-04T03:29:08","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T07:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=121233"},"modified":"2017-10-04T03:29:08","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T07:29:08","slug":"coates-promotes-new-book-we-were-eight-years-in-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/10\/04\/coates-promotes-new-book-we-were-eight-years-in-power\/","title":{"rendered":"Coates promotes new book ‘We Were Eight Years in Power’"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Coates<\/a>
Coates emphasized that \u201cWe Were Eight Years in Power\u201d is not a declaration of \u201chow great I am.” (Photo By Source, Fair use)<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 On publication day for his new book, Ta-Nehisi Coates had personal and political thoughts to share.<\/p>\n

The award-winning author and journalist spoke before hundreds of people gathered Tuesday night at the New School in Manhattan, discussing his rise from obscurity to fame over the past few years and the country’s transition from President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump. Coates, who turned 42 last week, was interviewed by his editor, Chris Jackson, as he discussed \u201cWe Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy.\u201d The book includes essays Coates published during Obama’s presidency and a new and widely discussed piece, \u201cThe First White President,\u201d in which he writes about Trump’s race being an essential factor in his surprising victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe Were Eight Years in Power\u201d already is in the top five on Amazon.com’s bestseller list and arrives two years after his anguished exploration of race and police violence, \u201cBetween the World and Me,\u201d sold hundreds of thousands of copies, won the National Book Award and brought comparisons both flattering and intimidating to the late James Baldwin. It was a startling contrast to the reception of his first book, the 2008 release \u201cThe Beautiful Struggle,\u201d which he joked was so obscure that even Jackson didn’t turn up for the first reading.<\/p>\n

Fame was \u201clike getting hit with a Mack Truck, a Mack Truck filled with money,\u201d Coates said to much laughter. \u201cBut it was still a truck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coates emphasized that \u201cWe Were Eight Years in Power\u201d is not a declaration of \u201chow great I am.\u201d It’s a work of criticism and self-criticism, the study of a mind in motion and a country in crisis. It begins with a 2008 essay about Bill Cosby that Coates now feels embarrassed by because he did not look into allegations that the comedian had sexually assaulted numerous women. Coates also includes essays on Obama, Malcolm X, the Civil War and one of his best known works of journalism, \u201cThe Case for Reparations,\u201d a cover story for The Atlantic magazine in which he contended that the country needed to debate how it might repay the black population for the crippling legacy of racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone thought I was wrong,\u201d Coates said Tuesday. \u201cI felt like, why are people overlooking this?\u201d<\/p>\n

Coates said he didn’t want to \u201cshuffle and play patty-cake\u201d with his critics. Success had granted him a \u201cvery large megaphone,\u201d made possible by black writers before him, and he had a responsibility to use it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis kind of chummy, respectful sort of thing that folks do who have certain faculty positions, certain relationships with people,\u201d he said. \u201cListen, that ain’t my world, man. I came from a black world. … Being that there aren’t too many people with this kind of audience I just feel like I got to represent that to the fullest and be really direct and clear about that. And push these people, man, because they need to be pushed. They need to be made uncomfortable, like we’re uncomfortable. We got to make it hot, because it’s hot for us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2014 On publication day for his new book, Ta-Nehisi Coates had personal and political thoughts to share. The …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":121235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,106],"tags":[26007,25172,26006,26008],"class_list":["post-121233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-hollywood","tag-new-book","tag-promote","tag-ta-nehisi-coates","tag-we-were-eight-years-in-power","mauthors-hillel-italie","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}