The World We Make (Great Cities #2)

by N.K. Jemisin

This ain’t the kind of city where you can start from nothing anymore and have a real chance, and I started with less than nothing. American Dream been a sucker bet.

That’s my Manhattan: neat and proper on the surface, walking near-death experience underneath.

Especially immigrants for whom the whole Send me your tired, your poor schtick has turned out to be more like Send me your smartest and hardest working so we can suck the life out of them then ship the exhausted dregs right back.

I remember him doing the whole ‘socially liberal / fiscally conservative’ song and dance back when he first started out—as if you can be socially liberal when you’re against funding social justice—

Every court is a horror movie setting at its core, where property matters more than human lives and justice gets measured in billable hours.