We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Obama agreed to be interviewed for “My President Was Black,” a piece that felt to me not just like the end of an era for the president but also the end of one for me. Between the World and Me had made my personal invitation to the White House possible and thus made “My President Was Black” possible. The challenge here was not in the interviewing but in finding that quiet space I’d occupied to write all of my previous pieces. I needed to find some way to withdraw from the world, to ignore every critique of my writing I’d (mistakenly) read, and to not forget my own voice. This was very different from my days as a blogger, when I thrived amid the noise, when the interactions I’d had sharpened me. This was the first piece I’d written that was not crafted as a student in the crowd. It was not that I ended the process of criticism and conversation; I simply shrank that interaction down to people I directly knew and respected. Likely, I lost something in that shift. But I was coming to understand that losing things, too, was part of the journey.