The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“He shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. And I do not see how we can solve the turbulent problem of race confronting our nation until there is an honest confrontation with it and willing search for the truth and a willingness to accept the truth when we discover it” –The Other America, Martin Luther King.In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander set about to tell us the truth about an insidious racial injustice perpetuated in Black people of this country from it’s slave origins, through the black codes and Jim Crow laws after emancipation and Reconstruction, to a militarized criminal justice system and prison industrial complex targeting Black people. Her thesis is that slavery was never really abolished but merely evolved. She makes her heart-rending case with honesty, compassion, and amazing literary skill in 7 chapters.The book predates and predicts that the regular and unjust shooting deaths of Black men and women by the police will culminate in protests and the rise of a multiracial, global movement to change the culture of racial violence and caste in America. This book is an eye opener and a game changer. It is an honest and open voice on the problem of racial injustice in America. Most importantly it clearly lays out a truth we must all confront and acknowledge before having any national conversation on race in this country.My hope is that everyone reads it. Michelle Alexander’s voice in the work is a beautiful lament to racial justice. I pray that she sings on.

This book came right on time the description of the contents of the book is spot-on in fact it’s modest if anything. This is a very powerful and thought-provoking read I am a criminal justice major graduating with my BA heading for my master’s and this book has been a great thought-provoking resource that has opened my mind to alternative ideas and thoughts.

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 I gave the book itself 5 stars because the writing and overall historical explanation of mass incarceration due to a foundation of racism in the United States is extremely well done. However, I do not know what chapter 4 entails due to an extreme misprint. A portion of chapter 3 is in the middle of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 4 is printed twice. The numbers are out of order and it is extremely confusing to read. This is an unfortunate discovery as I have read and annotated the first half of the book. My suggestion: BUY THE BOOK from a small business that you can guarantee the quality AND CHECK THE CHAPTERS before diving in head first with a pen and highlighter.

Michelle Alexander takes on a multifaceted topic that affects the way in which justice is levied in the U.S. and she does it logically and carefully. What results is an indictment of so many aspects of our legal system, not just for people of color (blacks and hispanics, whatever their countries of origin), but for anyone the legal system chooses to target. In my opinion, it needs to be read by every person in the U.S. and anyone intending to come here. We are not the shining city on a hill we talk about, we are increasingly a place where people who are innocent of crime or who have committed relatively minor crimes are profiled, given little to no representation in our court system, given prison terms in excess of what reason dictates should be the case, treated as sub-humans in prison, and if they are released or paroled, are treated in many states as sub-humans for the rest of their lives. Alexander provides a prescription for correcting the numerous issues that have gotten us to this place, but little of it is easy. It is only if a majority of our political system and our citizenry demand change in this system of justice that we will ever have an appropriate and proportionate system in the country. We do not have such a system at present.

This book really breaks down all the facets of modern racism and how much we need criminal justice reform the same way we needed to end slavery, and Jim Crow laws. Black Americans will never be free for as long as they are criminalized

Michelle Alexander uses facts and statistics with hard based evidence to back up each and every claim and statement. This is a truly amazing eye opener to the plights of African Americans and people of color living in America today. Everyone should read this. I have personally bought copies to pass out to others. It’s going to take the power of the people to incite change in our system. It’s great to see our younger generation (young white people included) who are finally opening their eyes and getting their heads out of the sand to see what our parents and grandparents in the white community have been turning a blind eye to. Just as I’m utterly disgusted and appalled at what my great grandparents’ & grandparents’ (with slavery) and my parents’ (with segregation & Jim Crow laws), generation allowed to happen & continue to the African American community by turning a blind eye and not standing up to fight for equal rights and for people of color to be treated with basic humanity, my children will be utterly appalled at what my generation (I’m currently 29) have allowed to continue with the “new Jim Crow” and I for one will use the power of my voice and actions to speak out and incite change. It’s going to take all of us together to make the government at local, state, and federal levels to change. Just with change on every other chaste system, it took many white people to open their damn eyes and stand up with their fellow Americans of color for change to occur!!! I pray that it ends with mine & the current generation and that my children’s generation will finally live in a true and fair system with completely equal opportunities for all people, especially for people of color!!Thank you Mrs. Alexander for your hard work & research and your dedication to making sure every fact was fully backed up with hard based evidence so that no person could refute or deny these claims. I believe this book will continue to open eyes and incite change in our world!!

American people clarion wake up to oppressive programs and laws that ultimately imprisoned us all in the idea of false safety from things we were told were threats from our own fellow people. The tone can be uncomfortable for anyone that has conscious, we need to hear it, and then answer the call to give everyone the chance at The American Dream! We will all not be truly free until that day.

The book arrived in good time. Perfect quality.

The book was in great condition thank you!

If I never recommend that u read anything I recommend this book. This book speaks of how black and brown people are held back first slavery, Jim crow and now mass incarceration. There was a point of time when poor whites voted with blacks because it made sense, we all were being oppressed by the same issues. Whites then noticed how blacks where becoming entrepreneurs and making more money and living better than them. Elite whites them convinced poor whites to vote their way because why should blacks do better and live better than them. Mass incarceration came about a means to keep us from being where we once were. Images depicted on tv screens show black people and the crack/cocaine time period and showed us as being drug dealers, users and of being over all aggressive. Laws were made to stop and halt the War on Drugs. Even though white people use and sell drugs at a much higher rate than we do, the camera was on us. This book was nothing short of amazing. I don’t wanna give too much of this book away but the main focus is that there are incentives given to police departments to arrest back people on trumped up drug charges and ultimately get them to plead guilty on felony charges and thus ruins their life by not being able to get jobs or even government assistance when they get out of jail. The goal is to understand that we don’t hold us back but the laws and goals of the government to keep us down as a people so. I do however not like the part of the book at the end where they speak of how affirmative action negatively affected white people, I was like really how sway? Ur white in America and the odds are in ur favor. Over all very good book.

The more and more and more books I read, the more disturbed I become by the fact that so many of us Americans (white Americans in particular) have listened to, learned about, and believed a historical narrative that has effectively ignored, glossed over, prettied up, lied about what ACTUALLY has been happening in this country over the past 100 (200, 400) years.It’s a shock to the system when you start learning the truth. But it is so worth it.The author explains that she has written this book for a very specific audience–people who care deeply about racial justice but might not be aware of “the magnitude of the crisis faced by communities of color as a result of mass incarceration.”In other words, she says, she’s writing this book for the person she was 10 years ago.The U.S. has moved from one racial caste system to another over the relatively short time it has been a country. First, slavery. White people owned black people. Then, sharecropping. After slavery “ended,” black people could often find no jobs but to actually go back to work for the people who once owned them. They were technically “free” but made almost no money working the fields and had no way to fight for their rights. Then, segregation. People of color were kept out of basically everywhere. And, if they were allowed in, there were separate lines/entrances/seats for “white” and for “colored.”And now? Mass incarceration.“The fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not–as many argue–just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work.” (16)In other words, people of color get pulled over more, arrested more, fined more, imprisoned more. Disproportionate to their crimes.The facts don’t lie.This is such an important book and should be required reading for every American.

The New Jim Crow should be mandatory reading for those who are unaware of the damage that our drug laws have in terms of exacerbating systemic racism. Liberals and progressives would value this book due to it highlighting the struggles the Black and Latino communities have faced due to the disproportionate enforcement of our drug laws (along with how the absence of good educational and economic opportunities have exacerbated this) while libertarians and real conservatives (the ones who believe in limited government and self-choice; not the ones who claim conservatism as a facade for their own racism) would acknowledge how the creation of black markets only strains law enforcement. This is an American problem, no matter how disconnected you may feel from it, and is a good place to start for people who want to become better informed on the topic of racial justice.

This should appear in people’s hands everywhere. We really DO keep the black man down. And I’m saying that as a Caucasian! We are all people! Okay, now that I’ve alienated you, read on and see what you think. This is a scholarly book with an adult reading level, references to back up given factual evidence of the author’s startling proposition: too long a history, so despicably sneaky, and the worst? Almost no one except the author, whom I trust so far, (for her clear lines of reasoning backed by evidence and facts), has “seen” something horrendous going on in America. WHY racism? I’ve never understood it, but when it’s present both ways, it’s scary, like my miserable time in Arkansas, where my husband took a promotion. I was never so glad to come home when I got a glimpse of this beautiful state I now live and will die in. But we are still left with flawless reasoning about something deeply secret and hidden and rotten to the core. We don’t whip our slaves anymore, we find any way we can and jail them, then take away everything from them, and when they get out they are “non-citizens.” This affects all of us. This is expensive, corrupt, frightening and disgraceful. Behold, The New Jim Crow.

As an African- American female, I found the issues Alexander discusses regarding racism in America and the “colorblindness” of other races very relatable. The first line of the book, “this book is not for everyone,” forces the reader to automatically decide if they wish to keep reading or not. I fortunately did. Alexander, a criminal rights lawyer and former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, is very knowledgeable about racism and criminal justice in America which perfectly qualifies her to publish such a groundbreaking book regarding this topic. The book argues two main topics, first, America is and has always had a problem with racism that simply transforms over time, and second, that many American citizens think racism has disappeared over the past decade, and it has not. As a minority living in America, I completely agree with Alexander’s arguments that race continues to be a problem for our country and that many citizens are blind to this racism. As a college student at a predominately white institution, I think it was necessary for me to read this book and discuss these issues with my friends of other races. Not enough people are comfortable talking about race yet, and it is a shame. I would highly recommend this book.

This book absolutely makes the case for what most of us don’t have any clue is happening in a raw, educated, and mindblowing way. There is no way that anyone with a compassionate and empathetic mind could not be altered after reading this. The evidence within is sound and convincing. You cannot unknow once you KNOW.

My views align with the authors views and I’m excited to read this over winter break.

The New Jim Crow is embedded in colonization prior to the founding of white men in power This book dispels the myths and lies and exposes the structured underclass which is institionalized in America.

Author, Michelle Alexander, presents a compelling argument that there is a segment of society, the Undercaste, which is created and sustained by a vast system of law enforcement procedures, laws and social exclusion. Because it is designed to keep people of color in a perpetual cycle of marginality, Alexander resurrects a name from the past and labels this system The New Jim Crow.Alexander describes how the system of Mass Incarceration begins with the `The Round-Up’. The War on Drugs, with its race-neutral language, is the vehicle in which “…a vast number of people are swept into the criminal justice system by the police who conduct drug operations primarily in poor communities of color.” (pg. 180) More of the racial undertow is revealed with a discussion on how the drug use of people of color vs. the drug use of White America is not proportional to the numbers of each being charged and sentenced.Alexander, a professor of law and Civil Rights lawyer, details the next stage, Formal Control, and how felony charges are applied, how deals and plea bargains are made and how mandatory drug sentencing precludes anything but prison time and, most importantly, the label of `felon’ or `criminal’ .In the final stage, Invisible Punishment, it is shown how after being released from prison, the difficulties one faces mostly due to laws and sanctions, making re-integration back into mainstream society an almost impossibility. “Today a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave or a black person living `free’ in Mississippi at the height of Jim Crow.” (pg. 138)Although Alexander suggests that the remedy for this nearly invisible racial caste system is beyond the scope of this book, she does outline key principles that are needed to lead us down the road to reform.

Wow. This is an incredibly eye opening book. Regarding the one-star review that said “believe white people are the devil”, that’s the thing about this book, you don’t have to believe that white people are the devil to see the insidiousness of what transpired. Just as we would explain that a penguin has flippers to swim as a biological adaptation to a life around water, so to we can explain the drug war. Perhaps, white folk didn’t consciously use the drug war as a means of controlling young black males, but the results are exactly the same as if evolution led to flippers in a penguin. The war on the drugs DID lead to the results she describes in this book, so knowing that, can we still justify it? But the most revealing part of the book is the court case after court case where any two year old could see through the wrangling by the justices where arguments that wouldn’t even fool a four year old is used by the supreme court to uphold clearly biased results. Put the drug war to the scrutiny of a historian 200 years in the future…what would he or she write about it? A disturbing book.

…decent schools. They were rounded up by the millions, packed away in prisons, and when released, they were stigmatized for life, denied the right to vote, and ushered into a world of discrimination.” (p 175)This book, which I bought for my husband and immediately borrowed to read myself, was not what I expected. In it, the author theorizes that the War on Drugs, begun by Reagan and continued under every successive president, has resulted in a contemporary system of Jim Crow laws against persons of color. She discusses things like mandatory sentencing laws for those charged with drug-related crimes (including disparities in the more stringent standards for, say, crack cocaine versus powder) and the prevalence of plea bargaining, which many accused of crimes choose to take over the wait and risk of going to trial, not necessarily knowing that when they agree to a plea for a felony, the long term ramifications of being labeled a felon are significant, and affect: future employment opportunities, voting rights and often negate a person’s right to receive social services.Chapter by chapter, page by page, fact by fact – Alexander makes her case. As I began to read, I could not believe that so many persons in America are in prison on drug-related charges, prison statistics sites; however, confirmed her contentions time and again.According to the author (p 16), “What this book is intended to do—the only thing it is intended to do—is to stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States. The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society. The fact that more than half of the young black men in many large American cities are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not—as many argue—just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work.”Since reading the book, I’ve recommended it to a number of friends (none of whom has chosen to read it…yet). The book has opened my mind to the ideas Ms. Alexander has put forth and its content has surprised me more than any book I’ve read in recent years. It should be on every American’s Required Reading list for 2016.Also excellent: All Aunt Hagar’s Children by Edward P. Jones, Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin and To Sir with Love by E.R. Braithwaite.

This is an excellent book. It is well written, insightful and thoroughly researched. It clearly presents how race is used by the privileged white male minority to subjugate and divide poor people. It traces this phenomenon historically in America from slavery through the first Jim Crow which came about after Reconstruction, to what she describes today as the new JIm Crow which is post Civil Rights. she articulately explains that even though the post Civil Rights era is characterized by colorblind it in fact is not and the War on Drugs has in fact used the criminal justice system to create a racial undercaste composed of primarily black and brown males.As a black attorney practicing in this system I have seen this first hand and Ms Alexander’s book put into perspective and articulately explained something that I have been a witness to for years. The criminal justice system is being used unfairly to prosecute “just us” and the result has been devastating for our communities in particular and America in general. the dichotomies produced by this situation are alarming as they are outstanding. America has elected its first Black President but continues to incarcerate more people (the majority of whom are of color) than any other nation in the world. Thanks to affirmative action some of us get into and graduate from the finest educational institutions and are positioned to live good lives yet the police kill young black males with impunity and the justice system offers little if any recompense. It is clear that in America young black male lives do not matter and this is a racial issue which must be confronted.Ms Alexander confronts this issue head on in her book. It is a good read which I would recommend to anyone who has a social conscious and is interested in making a positive change in this country.

If you really want to know the extent of white privilege and how it survives given that most Americans are not outwardly racist anymore, this is the book for you. As Michelle Alexander points out in great detail, white privilege exists today in America in the form of mass incarceration, the generic term for the fact that despite being a supposedly “free” country, we manage to imprison more of our citizens than any other country on earth, even Russia or China. But more than that, a very high percentage of these people are black, and in fact they go to prison at a rate disproportionate to the frequency with which they commit crimes. To be blunt, if you are caught selling illegal drugs in most states, you are likely to go to prison if you are black, but you will more likely get treated more leniently if you are white. It’s worse than that, because, unlike most other developed nations, we make certain that once someone is convicted of a felony, he loses the vote, his right to public housing, the ability to get a job, in other words, he can be discriminated against for life. But he committed the crime so he deserves it, right? Not so fast – whereas whites commit many crimes at the same rate as blacks or even higher, especially drug crimes, they go to prison much less often. Blacks have to be perfect – dot their i’s and cross all their t’s. It’s not realistic, and it’s unfair.Alexander points out that this is nothing more than a new system to marginalize and discriminate against blacks, and calls it “the new Jim Crow”. If anything, it’s more accurate to call it the new slavery. Just go to Angola State Prison in Louisiana and watch all the black prisoners working in the cotton fields. Look familiar? Now how did this happen? How did the number of Americans behind bars go from 350,000 (still a high number) to over 2 million in the last 30-40 years? A large part of it was the War on Drugs, started by Nixon around 1970. Alexander traces the history of the drug war, and describes how it became a vehicle for mistreating blacks even in the face of prevalent “colorblind” attitudes of most Americans today. We don’t directly label blacks as inferior and make them ride the back of the bus today, we just try real hard to get them labeled as felons, then we can discriminate. And most Americans don’t realize we’re doing it and how much damage this causes. It’s also expensive and a waste of taxpayer dollars.In the final chapters Alexander offers some ideas on how to dismantle this system. It’s very hard, and it’s not enough to file lawsuits in individual cases. It requires a major protest movement. Many things have to be undone, such as the entire drug war, disenfranchisement laws, the management of prisons by private corporations to name a few. But the resistance will be huge because many jobs would disappear, and no one wants to be seen making life better for criminals. Also, colorblindness won’t do – we need to be conscious of racial differences yet driven to treat everyone with respect, fairness and kindness. It’s a totally different mindset for most Americans. Especially fascinating was her description of how such concessions, or “racial bribes”, as affirmative action serve to justify continuing the system as it is. Affirmative action has helped a lot of blacks become successful, but it glosses over the main problem. The fact that we have a black President also obscures the real issues.Alexander states also that a full treatment of how to fix this problem would require another book, and I eagerly await that. In the meantime, please read this one.

If this book doesn’t make you angry, there’s something wrong. It should be read by every judge, prosecutor, defense lawyer, probation officer and cop in the country. These people need to know that they are participating, perhaps without even knowing it, in a profoundly unjust system that is as immoral as Jim Crow and maybe even as immoral as slavery.Ms. Alexander begins by identifying, as part of her target audience, people who are passionate about issues of racial justice in the criminal justice system and need to be armed with facts and data and argument to make their case. I was one of those people. But I came out of this book with more than an argument against the belief, held by many perfectly intelligent people I know, that the criminal justice system is race neutral. I started this book with an intuitive understanding as a lawyer, that the are elements of unconscious, subtle racism at every level of the criminal justice system, but I was optimistic that the necessary fixes were a matter of tweaking and tinkering and an evolution in our thinking about race. Now I feel kind of naive and out of touch for having thought that.The author does not merely make a sound argument that the system of mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow (and in many ways worse than the old Jim Crow). She proves this argument with a compelling factual and statistical case that can’t be denied even as she explains why it IS IN FACT denied by governments and by American society collectively. This, along with the deplorable state of public education financing and resulting inequities in educational opportunity, is the civil rights issue of our time, and it requires a new and courageous civil rights movement to seek a remedy.

I came into this book with a pretty decent grasp on Alexander’s thesis—thanks in part to the deserved hype her work has received over the years—but found myself captivated as she connected the dots on so many different aspects of mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, Jim Crow, and the historical intersection between classism and racism.Alexander notes in her preface that she wrote this book specifically for people who already care about racial justice, and if you’re one of those people, I urge you to read this with the promise that you will come away from it with a much more comprehensive understanding of our current racial caste system.It’s so well-researched, so informative, and so compelling. I’ve seen some readers lament that Alexander spends parts of the second half of the book rehashing arguments from the first half, but this approach actually worked for me: by reiterating certain points throughout, she helped me better understand their context within the bigger picture.Finally, I have to say that reading this book now—during this point in time—was especially impactful. I learned that there’s a deep history of politicians and wealthy whites exploiting white working class vulnerabilities and racial resentments in order to preserve power and deliberately driving a wedge between poor whites and poor minorities. With so much talk right now about the economic anxieties of white working class Trump voters, I came away from this book with an even deeper conviction that pandering to poor and working class whites exclusively is absolutely not the answer. Rather, we need a real movement that addresses class struggles among all races so that we don’t risk history continuing to repeat itself.

I cannot say I “enjoyed” this book. But I can say I am grateful it was recommended to me and that I read it.My eyes were opened to how little I understand about an enormous problem that is right in front of me. Reading this book made me feel depressed and overwhelmed at times. But achieving awareness is a critical first step in being able to make decisions that help to move things in a more positive direction.The book is well written. There are many legal references to back up statements made. Several perspectives are offered in many areas.The bottom line is that a messed up focus on Mass Incarceration has become embedded in our “justice” system, creating much greater harm than good. Many of us don’t even realize this. And once we do, where do we go from there?

This is one of the must reads of the decade. Sadly it’s in vogue for people on the right to believe that any race problems we may have are fixable if only black people would have just a little more “personal responsibility”. As if it’s a simple lack of will. The “I don’t see color” phrase is intended to mask the persistent racism that hobbles a good portion of our fellow citizens and deprives our nation of the valuable contributions of so many.Alexander shows how our national shame of slavery morphed into the shame of sharecropping, peonage, Jim Crow segregation and, after civil rights became law, the war on drugs. Alexander chronicles the intentionally quiet and steady institutionalization of racism in law enforcement, courts and prisons that results in disenfranchisement of huge numbers of people and saddles us all with tremendous and unnecessary costs. Like a frog in a pot of boiling water, we didn’t see it happen, but the extent is both astounding and tragic. The reality Alexander reveals, backed up by an extensive survey of the research and the statistics, is overwhelming and truly saddening. As a white, active liberal, Alexander has handily convinced me that I didn’t know nearly as much I thought I did and that I am not doing as much as I ought to.

Michelle Alexander is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary. She wrote in the Preface to the 10th Anniversary Edition of this book, “[In 2008] I wanted Barack Obama to win. And I feared it. I worried that, if a black man were elected president … our nation would sink further into denial, and no one would listen to the message that I felt desperate to convey: we are not free of our racial history. To the contrary, a new caste system has been born again in America, a system of mass incarceration unlike anything the world has ever seen… I was right to worry.” (Pg. x)She continues, “I did not, and could not, know when writing this book that our nation would soon awaken violently from its brief colorblind slumber… We now have white nationalist movements operating openly online and in many of our communities; they’re … recruiting thousands into their ranks. We have a president who routinely unleashes hostile tirades against black and brown people—calling Mexican migrants ‘murderers,’ ‘rapists,’ and ‘bad people,’ referring to developing African nations as ‘s-ithole countries,’ and smearing the majority-black city of Baltimore as a ‘disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.’ Millions of Americans are cheering, or at least tolerating, these racial hostilities. And yet… we also have vibrant racial justice movements led by new generations of activists… as well as growing movements against criminal injustice led by those who are directly impacted by mass incarceration. Many of these movements aim to redefine the meaning of justice in America.” (Pg. xiii)She goes on, “It is tempting… to write an updated version of ‘[this book] that would account for all that has occurred. The new, revised version would describe how and why our nation has swung dramatically from … a ‘race to incarcerate’… to a bipartisan commitment to downsizing our prison system during the same period of time that a liberal, black president drastically expanded the system of mass deportation and mass surveillance.” (Pg. xvi) “The new, expanded version of this book would describe the relationship between the politics of mass incarceration… and the role of prison profiteering in the expansion of these systems… But telling the story of everything that has changed and remained the same would require a new book entirely.” (Pg. xviii)She explains, “I’m frequently asked… what about violent crime?… I chose to focus my attention on the exponential increase in arrests, prosecutions and sentences for nonviolent crime and drug offenses…. I thought that the time was overdue for public attention to be focused on state violence, rather than violence committed by individuals in impoverished, segregated communities suffering from economic collapse.” (Pg. xxii)Later, she summarizes, “A new social consensus must be forged about race about the role of race in defining the basic structure of our society if we ever hope to abolish the New Jim Crow. This new consensus must begin with dialogue, a conversation that fosters a critical consciousness, a key prerequisite to effective social action. This book is an attempt to ensure that the conversation does not end with nervous laughter.” (Pg. 19)In the Introduction, she outlines, “I had come to suspect that… the criminal justice system … was not just another institution infected with racial bias but rather a different beast entirely… I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-designed system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.” (Pg. 4-5)She notes, “The decline in legitimate employment opportunities among inner-city residents created economic desperation, leading some to sell drugs—most notably crack cocaine… Joblessness and crack swept inner cities precisely at the moment that a fierce backlash against the Civil Rights Movement was manifesting itself through the War on Drugs. No one should ever attempt to minimize the harm caused crack cocaine and the related violence… Numerous paths were available to our nation in the wake of the crack crisis, yet for reasons traceable largely to racial politics and fearmongering, we chose war. Conservatives found they could finally justify an all-out war on an ‘enemy’ that had been racially defined years before.” (Pg. 65)She observes, “the people who wind up in front of a judge are usually guilty of some crime. The parade of guilty people through America’s courtrooms gives the false impression to the public—as well as to judges—that when the police have a ‘hunch,’ it makes sense to act on it… The truth, however, is that most people stopped and searched in the War on Drugs are perfectly innocent of any crime… The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) trains police to conduct utterly unreasonable and discriminatory stops and searches throughout the United States.” (Pg. 88-89)She states, “Most people imagine that the explosion in the U.S. prison population during the past twenty-five years reflects changes in crime rates. Few would guess that our prison population leaped … in such a short period of time due to changes in laws and policies, not changes in crime rates. Yet it has been changes in our laws… that has been responsible for the growth of our prison system, not increases in crime.” (Pg. 117)She points out, “Any notion that drug use among blacks is more… dangerous is belied by the data; white youth have about three times the number of drug-related emergency room visits as their African-American counterparts. The notion that whites comprise the vast majority of drug users and dealers… may seem implausible to some… however, the prevalence of white drug crime—including drug dealing—should not be surprising. After all, where do whites get their illegal drugs? Do they all drive to the ghetto to purchase them from somebody standing on a street corner?… Whites tend to sell to whites, blacks to blacks… The notion that most illegal drug use and sales happens in the ghetto is pure fiction.” (Pg. 124)She suggests, “From the outset, the drug war could have been waged primarily in overwhelmingly white suburbs or on college campuses. SWAT teams could have … raided the homes of high school lacrosse players known for hosting coke and ecstasy parties after their games. The police could have seized televisions, furniture, and cash from fraternity houses based on an anonymous tip that … a stash of cocaine could be found hidden in someone’s dresser drawer… Suburban homemakers could have been placed under surveillance and subjected to undercover operations… All of this could have happened … in white communities, but it did not. Instead, when police go looking for drugs, they look in the ‘hood.” (Pg. 155)She says, “What about gangsta rap and the culture of violence that has been embraced by so many black youth? Is there not some truth to the notion that black culture has devolved in recent years, as reflected in youth standing on the street corners … and rappers boasting about beating their ‘hos’ and going to jail? Is there not some reason to wonder whether the black community, to some extent, has lost its moral compass? The easy answer is to say yet and wag a finger at those who are behaving badly… The more difficult answer… is to say yes… we should be concerned about the behavior of men trapped in ghettoized communities, but the deep failure of morality is our own… it is helpful to step back and put the behavior of young black men who appear to embrace ‘gangsta culture’ in the proper perspective. There is absolutely nothing abnormal or surprising about a severely stigmatized group embracing their stigma… Psychologists had long observed… a powerful coping strategy… is embracing one’s stigmatized identity.” (Pg. 212-213)She asserts, “The fact that Barack Obama can give a speech … [on] the subject of fathers who are ‘AWOL’ without every acknowledging that the majority of black men in many large urban areas are currently under the control of the criminal justice system… They did not walk out on their families voluntarily; they were taken away in handcuffs, often due to a massive federal program known as the War on Drugs.” (Pg. 223)She observes, “sanctions imposed by operation of law… often have a greater impact on one’s life course than the months or years one actually spends behind bars… the vast majority of people convicted of crimes will never integrate into mainstream white society. They will be… denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Unable to surmount these obstacles, most will eventually return to prison and then released again, caught in a close circuit.” (Pg. 231)She acknowledges, “It is frequently argued in defense of mass incarceration that African Americans want more police and more prisons because crime is so bad in some ghetto communities… The argument… seems relatively straightforward, but… [has some aspects] which are quite problematic. To begin with, the argument implies that most African Americans prefer harsh criminal justice policies to other forms of governmental intervention, such as job creation, economic development… educational reform… as long-term solutions to problems associated with crime… The one thing that is clear from the survey data … is that African Americans in ghetto communities experience an intense ‘dual frustration’ regarding crime and law enforcement.’ (Pg. 258-259)Back in the New Deal era, “Although many poor African Americans rejected the … strategies of the black elite, ultimately moral uplift ideology became the new common sense… Black elites found they had much to gain by positioning themselves as ‘race managers,’ and many poor African Americans became persuaded that perhaps their degraded status was, after all, their own fault. Given this history, it should come as no surprise that today some black mayors… as well as preachers, teachers… and ordinary folk—endorse ‘get tough’ tactics and spend more time chastising the urban poor for their behavior than seeking meaningful policy solutions to the appalling conditions in which they are forced to live and raise their children.” (Pg. 266)She laments, “The economic collapse of inner-city black communities could have inspired a national outpouring of compassion and support. A new War on Poverty would have bene launched… compassion and concern could have flooded poor and working-class communities in honor of the late Martin Luther King Jr. All of this could have happened, but it didn’t. Instead, our nation declared a War on Drugs.” (Pg. 271) She proposes, “There is no path to liberation for communities of color that includes this ongoing war.” (Pg. 288)She concludes, “another generation of advocates… who know best the brutality of the new caste system.. should [be] … emboldened… by the fierce urgency of now. Those of us who hope to be their allies should not be surprised… that when those who have been locked up … finally have the chance to speak and truly be heard, what we hear is rage…. We may be tempted to control it, or doubt it… But we should do no such thing… we should do nothing more than look him in the eyes and tell him the truth.” (Pg. 324)Both thought-provoking and controversial, this book will be “must reading” for anyone concerning about current issues such as drugs, crime, etc.

This is a powerful book. It talks about an issue that we as Americans don’t always want to confront: race. It shows how race remains a critical issue in our country today. But more importantly, it demonstrates clearly, intelligently, and successfully that the drug war in this country particularly targets minorities, especially black males. The court system imprisons black males for drug crimes, including first offenses. When white males commit these very same crimes, they go free with perhaps a fine or probation. But they don’t go to jail. But black males do, resulting in massive prison populations today. These black males are then labeled “felons.” When they get out of jail, they find it difficult to get work, they can’t vote, and they can’t qualify for housing assistance. They already have three strikes against them.I find this book so frustrating. I knew that race was still an issue. Anyone who pays attention to the news knows that. But this book has taught me that race remains a critical issue in this country. I thought we had made real progress,and perhaps we have, but THE NEW JIM CROW shows how very far we still have to go. Racism, unfortunately, is alive and well. Our court system should be ashamed.

Jim Crow is an ugly blemish on the American nation and while much of the repressive practices of Jim Crow have been eliminated or at least sharply curtailed, there are still active, often covert and/or conniving ways to keep minority races in their place. These underhanded means of social control and oppression are the subject of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.So, what exactly is the new Jim Crow? It is a means to control, dehumanize, repress, and ultimately destroy the lives of minorities by finding ways to target them for breaking crimes and send them off to prison. The main weapon of control is the disastrous and immoral war on drugs and this book devotes most of its pages to examining this so- called war, showing how it was devised and implemented as a way to unfairly target blacks and other minorities.This book is well- articulated and researched and some of its statistics are shocking. As I read, I often thought that the some of the stats had to be typos- they were too extreme to be true. But a quick check of sources proves them accurate. The chances of getting arrested, going to prison, and spending the rest of your life labeled as a felon are multiple times higher if your skin happens to be dark. Even if exactly the same crime is committed, a white person has exponentially greater odds of getting off easy, sometimes even having all charges dropped or the crime reduced. The disparities among different groups of people prove that the war on drugs has nothing to do with gaining control of a substance and everything to do with targeting specific groups of people.I can remember back in the 1980’s when the war on drugs was picking up steam. I was a university student at the time and we used to debate the drug war and its true motives. We all agreed that the war had nothing to do with the actual drugs- no one, not even a politician, could be so stupid to think that a war could be won against a substance. We knew there was something else going on and now that decades of data are available, the true motives have been exposed. This book does an excellent job explaining how/why the war on drugs was invented and how its proponents have been generally successful at pulling it off and making it seem like a fair, ‘colorblind’ way to deal with criminal activity.America’s racist past isn’t really in the past, as much as we want to believe. We like to think that progress has been made and, in many ways, it has, but we are far away from a truly equal and fair society. The New Jim Crow is an excellent way to learn about the new tactics embraced by the racist crowd and a call to action for everyone who wants to work toward a fair and just society.

Thank you. It arrived earlier than expected and looks great!

I had hoped that I would one day write a book entitled “the Jim Crow of the North”. I was not cognizant that one would have written another book bearing such a great degree of similitude …in so many ways. If one lived in NYC during the mayoral administration from 2002-2013, he/she would certainly espoused my sentiment. A mayor who FOOLED the GULLIBLE, the NAIVE and the SIMPLETONS …oh, so easily. He did the most UNDEMOCRATIC thing I’ve ever known. He broke the municipal law, making sure he remained in office for 3 terms…12 years rather than 8. During that TORMENTOUS period, he carried out the most DEVASTATING WAVES of DISCRIMINATION and RACISM against the folks of COLOR. Nepotism was highly conspicuous. Even the most menial jobs done by those who are called Blacks and Hispanics were taken away from them and given to the HORDES of Europeans coming to the Big Apple. Furthermore, he sanctioned the police department to carry out STOP & FRISK against any human whose skin color, race and ethnicity demonstrated DIFFERENCE from his. When he left office after 12 long years, he turned around and demanded that the City Council enforce the law to ALLOW only 2 terms. By the way, his tenure as mayor started the year AFTER 911. The entire World adversely felt the DENT in World economy. The European HORDES…the MASSES came cascading towards ALL the 5 boroughs that make up NYC. Yes, the Jim Crow of the North psychologically, socially and financially DAMAGED the folks of Color. Today, NYC is really a SEA of White faces. Hmm! I still believe that when the DNC allowed him to speak at their convention, the CURSE of Heaven fell on that place and the beginning of the deterioration of the possibility of winning for this particular political party had just begun.

In Washington DC, about three out of four young black men will serve time in prison. In American cities where the War on Drugs rages, almost eighty percent of young African American men have criminal records. What do they have to look forward to once they’ve done serving time?Michelle Alexander writes with brutal intensity about life as a felon. Former prisoners “enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion.” Felons lose the right to vote. They can’t apply for public housing. When they have to identify themselves as a felon on job applications, their chances of being hired are thin. With no chance for public housing and no job, their families fall victim to ongoing cycles of poverty. They are locked out of society, permanently.The New Jim Crow is a harsh call to action. Our communities are being torn apart by what is happening in the criminal justice system. There’s much that can be done. Alexander offers several solutions, like meaningful re-entry programs for felons, training and education, better drug treatment programs, and taking on the barriers to re-entering society. Like Martin Luther King, Alexander shows us that the way to hope lies in treating everyone with dignity, with the right to food, shelter, health care, education and security. What we choose to do now impacts the future for all Americans.–Kate Calina

This book was comprehensive and succinct. It opened my eyes to so much that is behind the curtain, some things that I was guilty of as well, and didn’t realize, this should be a must read for all college students.

I have not read this book but I’ve heard good things about it. Ordered this particular one for a friend but the prison would not let him have it. Rerouted it to his home address. That should tell you something!

Absolutely essential reading for anyone who cares about social justice and racial equality in the United States. In this book Michelle Alexander clearly describes how it has come to pass that despite “colorblind” laws, we have developed a society where there is what amounts to a racialized undercaste of black and brown people, labeled as “felons” through the War on Drugs and as such subject to completely legal discrimination in housing, employment, federal assistance, and other areas, and often disenfranchised for life.Alexander shows how the war on drugs has resulted in vastly unequal outcomes by race, even though all studies show that whites and people of color use drugs at the same rates. She shows clearly through careful, logical analysis how this system operates, how it has been inoculated against legal challenge at every level (which was shocking and deeply disturbing to me) and how the lifelong effects of being caught in this dragnet never end.This book is urgently needed now more than ever. If there is any hope of healing the poisonous legacy of slavery in this country, it is imperative that this system of oppression be understood clearly, and dismantled permanently, without allowing a new version of racial control to spring up in its place.

Alexander uses both her experience and scholarship to disect the illusion of a Free and just America. Alexander brilliantly makes comparisons from brick and mortar prisons to digital prisons ( ankle bracelets and other monitoring devices), which has emerged as a new cost effecient and oppressive command and control over black men. Alexander includes the adverse effects this has on black women and children and how black women and children are regulated to 2nd class citenziship in the country they are birthed in. Alexander reveals the inequity of the criminal justice system as a cause of black men being arrested and convicted of petty crimes at 10 times the rate of their white counterpart. Alexander closes by offering hope for an egalitarian society through a combination of coalition activists and the uniting of the races. This book is short and powerful. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is trying to make a male sense of the resurge of racism in America.

A second reading of the New Jim Crow only strengthens Michelle Alexander’s compelling argument that systemic bias is built into our public policy process to incarcerate and disenfranchise the poor, but obviously focused on the young black male. It’s a hard argument to accept, but Alexander’s precise, well documented and reasoned treatise makes it impossible to refute. The tragic cost in the potential for our society makes one wonder why policy makers and the media have been so silent. Could it be that they are complicit in this charade?I came to this book after seeing Alexander on Bill Moyers and, to be honest, found many of her arguments and conclusions to be weird to looney. But I decided to give her book a try and it has stayed with me ever since. I must explain, as a 50 year old middle class male with a nebulous ethic categorization, one who has never even known anyone who has served time, I have never had an interest nor even awareness of this issue. It should seemingly be unimportant to me. But as Alexander makes clear, this is my fight too.Alexander does a masterful job, among many, of tying the incentive to local law eforcement federal funding to the war on drugs and how it both skews priorities and public perception to believe there is far more crime than really exists. And of course, there has to be a culprit–usually, but not always, a young black male–and there has to be a system in place to deal with this “danger to society.” (sarcasm intended The policies are built on the acceptance of misinformation, the failure of law enforcement, a judiciary that feeds the prison system, and a public/private partnership that thrives on a steady supply of inmates. It is an argument that at first seems too simplistic until you give this book the time and attention it deserves. By the time I had finished my second reading, I fail to understand why we, as a nation, ignore this. Race obviously is the underlying reason. That, combined with intellectual laziness probably accounts for most of the situation.When taken together with David Cay Johnston’s argument in Free Lunch that the home security industry, which provides little that citizens and communities don’t already do themselves, has in interest in making people feel insecure, it is easy to mesh Alexander’s case together to produce a plausible outcome. We have mostly groundless fears, an industry that benefits from state and local public resources maintains a climate of fear to continue to make profits, public policy largely uses the war on drugs as a pretext for making that unfounded fear worse, and poor, young, black males make a perfect scapegoat.Those of us who have given up on Obama can look back on this issue as another reason we are disgusted with this administration. Rather than use the bully pulpit to take Alexander’s argument and educate the American people, it is ignored. Instead deportations have become vogue and quietly the political and commericial interests in maintaining the war on drugs are becoming the dominant voices at the Department of Justice and other federal agencies. Instead we are losing generations of citizens needlessly, diverting massive public resources and talents, and repeating the mistakes of the past again. Truly heartbreaking. And the lagniappe (that little something extra) for the Republican Party? Disenfranchising, in some cases permanently, voters who are largely inclined to vote for Republican opponents.This may be the most haunting of all public policy books you will ever read.

Ms. Alexander puts the spotlight on a massive racial undercast in the United States – mass incarceration, mainly of people of color (African Americans, Latinos). She postulates that mass incarceration has been created (and is perpetuated) mainly via the War on Drugs which is administered by a racially biased criminal justice system (judges, prosecutors, police). Ms. Alexander defines mass incarceration as encompassing all means for keeping this racial undercast under correctional control (prison/jail, probation, parole) in order to maintain racial hierarchy. And she supports her in-depth analysis by referencing several key Supreme Court cases/rulings, and describing how they have exacerbated mass incarceration of people of color. Ms. Alexander indicates that her book is intended to stimulate a conversation about the new Jim Crow; and she advocates that “all those who care about social justice should fully commit themselves to dismantling the new racial caste system.”

In her book, “The New Jim Crow”, civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar Michelle Alexander makes the case that the “war on drugs” since its launch in the early eighties has resulted in a new system of racial control in the US. In this system, young black men are disproportionately incarcerated for drug offences, which marks them as felons and subjects them to many life-long forms of legal discrimination. The war on drugs effectively relegates many black and brown men to a lower racial caste in society, similar to slavery and the Jim Crow era in the past. As such, mass incarceration has given rise to a New Jim Crow era.Based on numerous facts and studies quoted in the book, mass incarceration as a result of the war on drugs has taken on enormous proportions. “In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase.” “The racial dimension of mass incarceration is its most striking feature. No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities.” “Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates.” However, “in some states, black men have been admitted to prison on drug charges at rates twenty to fifty times greater than those of white men. And in major cities wracked by the drug war, as many as 80 percent of young African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.”With great clarity and detail, the author outlines the various elements that turned the war on drugs into an effective system of racial control, from the motivations and tactics used by police forces in drug arrests, and the way the U.S. criminal justice system is structured to lead to discrimination against people of color, to the legal discrimination of people labeled as felons after their time in prison.The book also analyzes the similarities and differences between mass incarceration, the Jim Crow era, and slavery, each in their own historical context. Based on this analysis, Michelle Alexander argues that the current trend towards colorblindness in society is one of the root causes for the racial caste system resulting from the war on drugs. From this point of view, the author takes a critical look at the current legislative focus of many civil rights efforts and issues a call to action to better address the underlying causes of racial control systems.The book is well written and organized, with a target audience of “people who care deeply about racial justice but who, for any number of reasons, do not yet appreciate the magnitude of the crisis faced by communities of color as a result of mass incarceration.” Considering myself part of this target audience, I can say that the book indeed opened my eyes to the system of mass incarceration with its many implications for people of color, and gave me many new points of view from which to approach this phenomenon.

Michelle’s writing style is a bit stilted and she repeats key points multiple times in the different chapters. It is almost as if the chapters were each written in a standalone fashion rather than a building block approach. However the story she tells is so compelling that I would not let that deter anyone. Her work as an attorney has paid off. She digs deep into each chapter of the history and results of the mass incarceration this country is undergoing. Alternating between anger and sadness, I was nevertheless completely gob smacked by just how bad the issue is. If you care about social justice, if you care about have a society that has “equal justice’ for all, then you must read this book.

This is a really good book. It explains things very well about how our past and current system operates as a system of racial control. It is very eye opening, infuriating, and saddening. It really helps you understand how things got to be the way they are. I would recommend this book for anyone going into the field of criminal justice or working with juveniles (even though this book doesn’t really focus on them, I think it could be useful and provide a sense of understanding for many people). I personally loathe history lessons, but this is presented in a way where the material is not boring, but very informative. If you’re an American, you should read this book.

Michelle Alexander has created a book with such scope about the link between the drug war, mass incarceration, and race that anyone with questions on these issues can’t help but “get it” after reading. Meticulous and suggesting hundreds if new avenues for further reading and discovery this is one of THOSE books that will become a cornerstone in a movement to name and end the new racial cast system.

this book is a MUST READ and i’ve never said that about any other book. The New Jim Crow is so informative and illuminating; just puts so much in perspective. stuff that you’ve heard, thought about, sub consciously thought possible, Ms. Alexander puts it out there with empirical evidence for EVERY ONE of her statements. it’s amazing how the whole system of ‘mass incarceration’ was rigged (so to speak) from the beginning (even tho sub consciously we knew). The Supreme Court bought in early on the whole ‘war on drugs’ fiasco and continued to reinforce this maniacal system of incarcerating Black people – our men in particular – which relates to today and all the killings of unarmed black men and the murderers (the police) who are sanctioned by the system and put on a paid vacation, so to speak , AND how the civil rights community is ‘strangely quiet’ – strange indeed. Ms. Alexander cites authors/luminaries like Lani Guinier – who has been an intellect, social justice advocate and my hero since bill clinton days. it was truly disheartening and inspiring (cause it manifested and validated our feelings, put a name to it) at the same time. the way Ms. Alexander expounds on the affect this war on black people had on the African American community – the shame, humiliation, families torn apart. ‘the system of mass incarceration is based on the prison label, not prison time” sums up the injustices and how after being released from prison the person is really relegated to slave status – can’t vote, no jobs, no social service, in her words – ‘legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion’. “WE HAVE NOT ENDED RACIAL CAST IN AMERICA; WE HAVE MERELY REDESIGNED IT”.

Rarely does a book come along that challenges your way of looking at things, informs you and galvanizes you. This is one of those books.I was blown away from the first page. The author posits her seemingly controversial theory boldly and without apology. It is simply this: that the “War on Drugs” and mass incarceration is functioning as a means of social control that is the next generation of Jim Crow laws. When I first read it, I thought she was being a little over the top. (In fact, the author tells a story that when she first saw a similar statement on a poster, she thought it was a bit much too). By the end of the book, she had made me a believer.She presents you with fact after fact and study after stud that builds a devastating case. After each point she makes, you think, “Yes, but…” (such as, “Yes, but the Fourth Amendment prevents illegal search and seizure”) but then she refutes every objection you have. It is extremely well-researched, comprehensive and insightful.This is the book that will inform our civil rights conversations for the next 20 years. It is a game-changer, a seminal work in this area. I’m letting everyone I know to become acquainted with it because they will be hearing about its theories for a long time.

Just want to know what was not teach in school