• Celebrity
    • Of The Essence
    • Celebrity News
    • If Not For My Girls
    • The State Of R&B
    • Time Of Essence
  • Fashion
    • 2023 Best In Black Fashion Awards
    • 2023 Fashion House
    • Red Carpet
    • Fashion News
    • Accessories
  • Beauty
    • Girls United: Beautiful Possibilities
    • 2023 Best In Black Beauty
    • Skin
    • Makeup
    • Nails
    • Hair
  • Lifestyle
    • Love
    • Parenting
    • Relationships
    • Bridal Bliss
    • Lifestyle News
    • Health & Wellness
    • ESSENCE Eats
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
  • Entrepreneurship
    • Money & Career
    • SOKO MRKT
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Paint The Polls Black
    • Culture
    • Politics
  • Shopping
    • Essence Holiday Gift Guide 2023
  • Video
  • Events
    • 2023 Fashion House
    • 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture
    • 2023 Wellness House
    • 2023 Black Women In Hollywood
    • 2023 ESSENCE Film Festival
    • 2023 HOLLYWOOD HOUSE
  • Studios
  • Girls United

WHERE BLACK CULTURE, COMMUNITY AND CONSCIOUSNESS MEET

Sign up for ESSENCE Newsletters the keep the Black women at the forefront of conversation.

Your email is required.
Your email is in invalid format.
Confirm email is required.
Email did not match.
Select the newsletters you'd like to receive:
Please select at least one option.
By clicking Subscribe Now, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Skip to content
SUBSCRIBE
  • MAGAZINE
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Celebrity
    • Of The Essence
    • Celebrity News
    • If Not For My Girls
    • The State Of R&B
    • Time Of Essence
  • Fashion
    • 2023 Best In Black Fashion Awards
    • 2023 Fashion House
    • Red Carpet
    • Fashion News
    • Accessories
  • Beauty
    • Girls United: Beautiful Possibilities
    • 2023 Best In Black Beauty
    • Skin
    • Makeup
    • Nails
    • Hair
      • Hair News
      • Natural
      • Relaxed
      • Transitioning
      • Weave
      • 4C
  • Lifestyle
    • Love
    • Parenting
    • Relationships
    • Bridal Bliss
    • Lifestyle News
    • Health & Wellness
    • ESSENCE Eats
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
  • Entrepreneurship
    • Money & Career
    • SOKO MRKT
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Paint The Polls Black
    • Culture
    • Politics
  • Shopping
    • Essence Holiday Gift Guide 2023
  • Video
  • Events
    • 2023 Fashion House
    • 2023 ESSENCE Festival Of Culture
    • 2023 Wellness House
    • 2023 Black Women In Hollywood
    • 2023 ESSENCE Film Festival
    • 2023 HOLLYWOOD HOUSE
  • Studios
  • Girls United
Home • Culture

Ta-Nehisi Coates On Why So Many White People Look To Him For Hope  

Ta-Nehisi Coates On Why So Many White People Look To Him For Hope
Cheriss May
By Khalid Sumner · Updated October 24, 2020

Ta-Nehisi Coates has 3000 – mostly White— faces packed into the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on brisk fall evening. Excitement for the featured guest rippling through a sea of coffee-shop intellectuals, book enthusiasts and woke college students.

Coates, a journalist for The Atlantic and widely regarded as our generation’s James Baldwin, has packed the theater to discuss his latest effort, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy. The 42-year-old’s popularity soared after publishing the now famous essay “The Case for Reparations” about race in America. Narrating this event is The Atlantic‘s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg.

4764611763001


Goldberg’s leading first question, “Has the past several months vindicated your pessimism?” launched Coates into the explanation about his writing coming from a place of historical reference and evidence before emotion. And though his writing is often critiqued as such, he isn’t trying to be a “downer” but just honest.

In his most recent article “The First White President”, Coates deconstructs Trump’s rise to the presidency as White America’s knee-jerk reaction to Barack Obama’s eight years of power in the White House. The wave of “whiteness” that ushered Trump into the Oval Office was made possible in large part by the available contrast of Barack Obama’s “blackness.”

When asked about the difference between his books Between the World and Me, (a memoir to his son) and We Were Eight Years in Power, Coates told ESSENCE, “Every time you write a book you have to learn to write. You have to learn how to write that book… figure out what it is.”

In his latest, Coates ties together eight different essays comprised over the course of the Obama administration. The in-depth racial commentary on America also chronicles Coates’ own journey through voice, idea and identity as a writer.

In the course of the discussion, Goldberg asked Coates, “Why do you think that so many White people look to you to give them hope? What is it that you symbolize?”

Coates noted that this new book is not a place of hope but a place for context. And as for “hope”— “you go to your pastor for that.”

COMPANY INFORMATION
  • Our Company
  • Customer Service
  • Essence Ventures
  • Change Your Address
  • Contact Us
  • Job Opportunities
  • Internships
  • Media Kit
  • tag
SUBSCRIBE
  • Newsletters
  • Give a Gift of ESSENCE
  • Magazine Tablet Edition
FOLLOW US
MORE ON ESSENCE
  • Home
  • Love
  • Celebrity
  • Beauty
  • Hair
  • Fashion
  • ESSENCE festival

ESSENCE.com is part of ESSENCE Communications, Inc.

Essence may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.

©2023 ESSENCE Communications Inc. All Rights Reserved. | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Essence.com Advertising Terms

Get The ESSENCE Newsletter and
Special Offers delivered to your inbox

By clicking Sign Up, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Get The ESSENCE Magazine
by subscribing below
subscribe now