Nobody: Casualties of America's War on the Vulnerable, from Ferguson to Flint and Beyond

August 29, 2016
Hill, a journalist and a professor of African-American studies at Morehouse College, places recent incidents of police violence against African-Americans in their historical and geographical contexts. The outrage over constant tragedy gathers momentum as what might once have been local matters become highly publicized events. Places such as Ferguson, Mo., Sanford, Fla., and Hempstead, Tex., and victims such as Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, and Kathryn Johnston, have become familiar nationwide through media exposure. Hill critiques the intended and unintended consequences of various policies: the expanding discretionary power, performance requirements, and militarization of the police; mass incarceration, often the consequence of mandatory minimum sentences or indeterminate sentencing leading to the wide use of plea bargaining; the disproportionate imposition of public-nuisance laws, and "broken windows" and stop-and-frisk policies, on African-Americans; and the outgrowth of state-sponsored exploitation of African-Americans for economic gain, evidenced by privatized prisons, the bail bond business, the use of fines in funding local police department budgets, and housing practices that created ghettos of poverty. Hill's work is valuable in rendering individual lives with empathy but without sanctification as he assesses the historical, sociological, and statistical milieu of these casualties in a lucid, highly readable book.

July 1, 2016

Hill (The Classroom and the Cell) uses recent high-profile, violent incidents against marginalized persons to highlight societal problems. The victims, or "Nobodies," are considered by society to be disposable, but their oppression can be contextualized as part of a larger story of politics, economics, and power. Hill links the 2014 murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, to the history of housing and segregation in St. Louis, as well as the 2012 killings of Jordan Davis and Trayvon Martin in relation to Florida's Stand Your Ground law. The criminal justice system is extensively explored, and Hill argues that practices such as plea bargains, settlements, and mandatory minimums are detrimental to crime victims. Also analyzed is the state of policing, along with the U.S. prison system and the Flint, MI, water crisis. Accounts of racial violence victims Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Freddie Gray are used as case studies. This analysis closes on a hopeful note by detailing activist movements which strive to counteract the forces that turn the vulnerable into Nobodies. VERDICT A thought-provoking and important analysis of oppression, recommended for those seeking clarity on current events.--Rebekah Kati, Durham, NC

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