RaveThe Los Angeles Times\"Coates is very good at detailing how systems operate, as he proves in his strongest essays, \'The Case for Reparations\' and \'The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration.\' But he’s also proven his disinterest in offering improvements, upgrades or plans for debugging the machinations that produce injustice, structural racism and inequality...I think that Coates’ work explains that the onus for change falls on those who perpetuate, benefit from and shield white supremacy ... As the best critics do, Coates draws us into conversation, into argument, rather than closing off discourse with canned proclamations or static resolutions ... by the end of We Were Eight Years in Power we can hear the Jim Crow South echoing loudly in the Trump administration’s calls for reform, purge and moral order. Here, Coates’ deft historical sampling might also offer us ingredients for crafting our collective rejection of white supremacy.\
