The writer and intellectual James Baldwin wrote, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
Today, Baldwin’s words resonate more than ever. A two-tiered system of justice dividing the powerful and the politically connected and the rest of us only seems to grow by the passing day. This gap is meticulously detailed in Marc Lamont Hill’s latest book, “Nobody: Casualties of America’s War on the Vulnerable from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond.”
In it, the Morehouse College Professor, journalist, CNN political commentator, and VH1 host details how the deaths of unarmed African American victims from Trayvon Martin to Sandra Bland and the residents of Flint, Michigan are victims of a political and economic system that refuses to acknowledge their suffering.
Hill and I recently spoke about his latest work, how it fits into the current news cycle, the revolutionary solutions being proposed by Black Lives Matter, and his new program on VH1.
Kevin Patrick Kelly: Let us talk about the title of your latest book. Who exactly are the “Nobodies”?