Racism In Mark Lamont Hill's 'Nobody'

Overtime all things change and develop into new forms, this is even true for racism. Mark Lamont Hill’s “Nobody” takes us through the history of black Americans in the U.S in relation to state. Moreover, he reveals the storyline within the nation that has consistently marked majority of minorities as expendable, products and as nobodies. Being that the book is only around 200 pages, we only get at the surface of what Mr. Hill is analysing. Nonetheless, he expertly maneuvers through the U.S’s muddy history to display the role of the State in keeping this “nobody” identity on black Americans. Focusing on cities throughout this nation, cities in which black people migrated to during the second great migration, what is often passed off as a coincidence

One of which is to inform the citizens of the U.S about the danger many minorities are placed in because of the “nobody” categorization thus making us extremely vulnerable within the U.S. This objective is illustrated right at the beginning of the book when the author states “The ghost of Ralph Ellison hovers over this book” (Hill, p.1 of Forward). This marks a similarity between Ellison’s book “The Invisible Man” and Hill’s “Nobody”. The invisible man was a black man who was invisible because people refused to see him, he was often only seen by his race and gender; consequently the real human being that he was went

For instance, the late Michael Brown—whom is frequently brought up in the book—graduated from a school that had test scores “so low that it lost state accreditation in 2012” (Hill,p.2). Being that he was seen as a “nobody”, the fact that he was deprived of a quality education was not questioned during his life or even after his death. Furthermore, the previously stated objective is illustrated by the history of “white flight”—the movement of white people from neighborhoods in which black people are moving—that occurred during and after the second great migration. This occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown’s home, because it was a industrial city with many job opportunities (Hill,p.8). However, these opportunities would eventually diminish as companies outsourced labor around the 1970s and with many white people gone, it was predominantly black Americans left exposed to a city with a limited job market; consequently, poverty and unemployment rose and with this followed a poor public education