In Part 2 of our interview with Steven Thrasher, chair of social justice in reporting at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, we get an update on his book, The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. He discusses the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and mask bans being passed by local governments and on college campus. “This is really, really dangerous situation,” Thrasher says, “because it is dissuading people from being able to mask, but it is also putting the power of what public health is in the hands of police officers.” He also gives a preview of his forthcoming book, The Overseer Class: Representation as Repression. Thrasher is an assistant professor of journalism, but Northwestern canceled his classes and suspended him when it put him under investigation this year, after Republicans attacked him during congressional hearings about pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, which he discussed in Part 1.