Street roots., December 23, 2016, Page 9, Image 9

Street Roots •
Book Review
Page 10
Dec. 23-29, 2016
Looking through the killing and injustice to find a clearer picture
democratic experience.” It is the way in
which the most vulnerable have been made
into “Nobody.”
hen you hear about one more
“To be Nobody is to be abandoned by the
killing by police, read one more
State
... to be Nobody is to be considered
statistic about racial disparities in
disposable
... While Nobodyness is strongly
arrests and mass incarceration, or protest
tethered to race, it cannot be divorced from
one more black majority city screwed over
other forms of social injustice.” Hill is
by an emergency manager, it’s easy to put it
writing
about “intersectionality,” or the
down as just one more example of
ways that multiple forms of oppression
America’s racism and injustice, without
operate simultaneously against the
giving real consideration to how these
vulnerable.
In particular, Hill calls out class.
things came to be. Marc Lamont Hill’s
“Unlike other forms of difference, class
“Nobody” is a good corrective to th a t
creates the material conditions and relations
Hill has a flair for connecting the dots
through which racism, sexism, and other
while he explores the background of the
forms of oppression are produced,
killings of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin
sustained,
and lived ... we cannot begin to
and Eric Gardner; the involvement of a third
address the various forms of oppression
of the Black male population in the
experienced by America’s vulnerable
punishment-end of the criminal justice
without radically changing a system that
system; and the poisoning of an entire city
defends class at all costs.”
in Flint, Mich. In the course of this
While this intriguing discussion frames
exploration, he uncovers illuminating facts
Hill’s exploration of “nobodyness,” he never
and connections.
really expands on these ideas after he
For example, Michael Brown’s death in
introduces them. The result is a fine, well-
Ferguson wasn’t just about brutal policing
by a white-dominated government in a Black written analysis about the context for some
of the major protests and discussions
suburb; it was the result of a history of
around race in the past few years, framed
residential segregation in the St. Louis area,
the bulldozing of a historically black
within a book that Hill promises but doesn’t
neighborhood and its replacement by a high- deliver, which would illustrate how racial
rise housing project, and the destruction of
oppression intersects with and is fueled by
other forms of oppression.
that housing project and dispersal of the
residents into Ferguson, which was formerly
Hill does include some discussion of
economic issues toward the end of his
a segregated White suburb.
chapter on the Flint water crisis. He brings
Eric Gardner’s death was a consequence
up the revived discussion of inequality in
of a decades-long trend of “broken window”
this country, referencing Thomas Piketty’s
policing that involved selective enforcement
“Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” as
of frequently violated laws. Gardner’s
well as the Occupy movement, and deplores
“crime” was selling loose cigarettes, which
is common on New York streets.
the neoliberal trend toward privatization of
The poisoning of Flint was the latest
public spaces, coupled with the growing
stage in the deindustrialization and
tendency for people to withdraw from face-
destruction of unions in the Midwest,
to-face social groups in favor of social media.
coupled with an increasing trend toward
Again, though, he doesn’t really develop this
privatization.
discussion, as if it’s a piece of the book that
The common thread, Hill asserts, is not
he never quite wrote.
simply racism, though, as he puts it, “White
For example, if racial injustice is part of a
supremacy is foundational to the American
broader intersection of other oppressions,
BY MIKE WOLD
C O N TR IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
W
Nobody:
Casualties of
America’s War on
the Vulnerable,
from Ferguson to
Flint and Beyond
by Lamont Hill
and fueled by the system’s defense of class
privilege, what is the best way for
progressives to address all these
oppressions at once? And, just as crucial,
how does the increasingly (and fortunately)
unfulfilled “promise” of white privilege and
male privilege intersect with class
oppression and “Nobodyness” in the white
working class to mobilize many from that
group to support the Right and to see
immigrants and people of
color as their enemies?
There probably aren’t
easy answers to these
The common thread, B ill
questions. Hill sees the
asserts, is not simply rac­
driving force of the current
crisis in the neoliberal push ism, though, as he pats It,
to subject all aspects of life
"White supremacy is foun­
to the logic of the market
dational to the American
rather than the public good. democratic experience/'
His one-paragraph argument
It is the way in which the
against privatization is
most vulnerable have been
incisive and focused: “In the
made
into "Nobody."
way that privatization
separates government
responsibilities from
democratic accountability,
the notion is flawed from its very
conception. Businesses are not made to
function for the public good. They are made
to function for the good of profit... People
need to know that the decisions of
governments are being made with the
common good as a priority. Anything else is
not government; it is commerce.”
Hill calls for crafting “a new set of
frameworks for our economy ... schools ...
justice system ... public housing. We must
resist the power and persuasion of market
values. We must reinvest in communities.”
He sees hope in the current “resistance
movement organized, led, and engaged by ...
Nobodies.”
Reprinted from Street Roots sister paper Real
Change News, Seattle.
At Health Share, we
believe good health is
more than what happens
inside your doctor's office.
Good health starts in your
community and includes
staying active, eating
healthy food and getting
regular check-ups.
Share your healthy habits
with family and friends. We
can all have better health
when we share it together.
health
share
133 NW Sixth Ave
503-222-5694
Open: Tues - Sat, 10 - 2:30
All Are Welcome!
Better health
together.
www.healthshareoregon.org