If you look at literacy tests in the South, for example, they were absurdly difficult and didn't measure literacy. They were simply measuring whether or not you were black. So at every moment when we've said, hey, we don't want certain people to vote because they are not educated enough, it is often simply become a way of excluding black and brown people.

Part of why I wrote my book was so that we could focus on the structural and systemic reasons behind social misery. Changed hearts and minds are important. But they do little against the backdrop of a system that needs to exploit people and labor to survive. I'm more interested in changed systems than changed hearts.

We live in a world where black humanity is a relatively new idea.

The truth is there are people who are quite informed who still vote against their interests. I would argue that, as a Green Party supporter, I would argue that middle-class black people are voting against their interests oftentimes.

When we look at the Trump candidacy or we look at any Republican candidacy for the presidency that's been successful, they tend to win by the margin of black and brown and poor people and immigrants who do not vote.

Nothing lasts forever, whether it's Greece, Rome or the British Empire. It doesn't mean that America has to end. The country could be reshaped and reimagined in a way that is even more democratic and less imperial in nature. We're trying to radically reshape the nation in ways that are more just and fairer. That's what I mean when I say that empires eventually fall. I'm not calling for the end of America. I'm just calling for a reimagination of its democratic possibilities.

We must talk about how sexism and patriarchy operate in conjunction with state violence. Until we're honest about that, and do something to resist, we're complicit in the persistence of oppression.