“Even if Trump loses, the fact that this is a contested race—a race so tight that we couldn’t call it on election night— tells you everything you need to know about America.” —Marc Lamont Hill, professor and author Professor and author Marc Lamont Hill was never one to mince his words. In his new book, We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest, Hill explores the precariousness of Blackness in 2020, opening the with what he refers to as a conundrum faced by Black folks in America: “In what way am I going to resist death today?” Indeed, this is the reality that we live in. Damn. Black Americans are under siege by a global pandemic that has disproportionately killed us, the state has killed us in public and private spaces (with little-to-no accountability), and the forces of white supremacy and fascism have gained traction under the presidency of Donald J. Trump. And yet, we still here. In under 200 pages, the media studies professor quite succinctly unpacks the ways in which we have arrived at the dumpster fire that is 2020 A.D. “Donald Trump is president because we live in a white supremacist country. We live in a country that is indifferent to Black misery, we live in a country that believes in money over people.” Hill continued, “We live in a country that is profoundly xenophobic and transphobic and homophobic. Donald Trump is an extension—the logical extension—of the shift in America over the last 30 years, from the public good to private interests. Trump is an embodiment of so much of the ugliness of America.” A devout member of the Green Party, Hill voted for a Democrat for president for the first time ever. While there’s a litany of policies that the scholar disagrees with Joe Biden on, Hill contends that the former vice president and Donald Trump are not opposite sides of the same coin. “One is clearly more favorable to the vulnerable than the other,” Hill stressed. Biden can be swayed. But, as for Donald J. Trump, the message is clear: Dude gotta go. “I voted for Joe Biden, and I did so because 200,000 plus people were dead. I did so because the country is on fire in a way that it’s not normally on fire. And let me be clear, America is always on fire. But Trump is holding gasoline in his hand,” said Hill. Watch Marc Lamont Hill discuss the precariousness of Blackness in 2020, the presidential election and why he chooses to resist and struggle every day. We Still Here: Pandemic, Policing, Protest and Possibility is on sale Nov. 10.