Structure

We Were Eight Years in Power is primarily organized chronologically. The collection includes an introduction, an epilogue, and eight notes that are retrospective discussions and narratives written after the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Each note prefaces an essay, and there is one essay for each year of the Obama presidency. The introduction previews important themes in the collection, while the epilogue reflects on the important question of why Donald Trump won. The structure of the collection provides both a loose narrative of Coates's life but also allows the reader to see his intellectual development over eight years.

A key element of that evolution is Coates's deepening understanding of the contemporary impact of white supremacy, and the essay collection can be roughly divided based on the stages of that evolution. The first four essays are the ones in which he initially grapples with disparate parts of white...