“We've always done direct action, and that direct action was predicated on doing what the state did not want us to do, which is to look back with accuracy, with acuity, and then make a direct action based on what we actually see,” Kiese Laymon says of Black communities in the Deep South of the United States.\r\n\r\n“It's hard to do that. It's hard to do that now with the nation, politicians, social media, and everything, convincing us that, that which we saw and know, we do not see or know,” the best-selling author says of the recent efforts by politicians and groups to ban hundreds of book titles, most of them to do with the experiences of racial minorities and LGBTQ people.\r\n\r\nOn UpFront, author, professor of English and creative writing at Rice University, and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, Kiese Laymon, joins Marc Lamont Hill to discuss Black identity and systemic racism in the American South.\r\n\r\nSubscribe to our channel  http://bit.ly/AJSubscribe\r\nFollow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/AJEnglish\r\nFind us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera\r\nCheck our website:  http://www.aljazeera.com/\r\nCheck out our Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/aljazeeraenglish/\r\n\r\n@AljazeeraEnglish\r\n#Aljazeeraenglish\r\n#News

With the thrust and parry of rigorous debate, Mehdi Hasan cuts through the headlines to challenge conventional wisdom, highlight contradictions and uncover double standards.

UpFront

Through rigorous debate, Marc Lamont Hill cuts through the headlines to challenge conventional wisdom.

<p>Through rigorous debate, Marc Lamont Hill cuts through the headlines to challenge conventional wisdom.</p>