In the midst of loss and death and suffering, our charge is to
figure out what freedom really means—and how we take steps to get
there.
“In the United
States, being poor and Black makes you more likely to get sick. Being
poor, Black, and sick makes you more likely to die. Your proximity to
death makes you disposable.”
The uprising of 2020
marked a new phase in the unfolding Movement for Black Lives. The
brutal killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor,
and countless other injustices large and small, were the match that
lit the spark of the largest protest movement in US history, a
historic uprising against racism and the politics of disposability
that the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare.
In this urgent and
incisive collection of new interviews bookended by two new essays,
Marc Lamont Hill critically examines the “pre-existing conditions”
that have led us to this moment of crisis and upheaval, guiding us
through both the perils and possibilities, and helping us imagine an
abolitionist future.