Is it possible for the U.S. to transcend its racist history? The title of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ most recent book – We Were Eight Years in Power – suggests a lost moment, a fumbled opportunity encapsulated in Obama’s presidency. The book itself is more complex (and its criticism of the first black President more stringent) than some of its critics would suggest, but the unspoken message is that racism is an indelible stain, and that whatever dreams of racial harmony Obama might have engendered have been inevitably crushed under the mighty hammer of white supremacy.

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