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#Post#: 210--------------------------------------------------
Michelle Alexander, THE NEW JIM CROW (2010)
By: agate Date: March 12, 2014, 8:40 pm
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Michelle Alexander, THE NEW JIM CROW: MASS INCARCERATION IN THE
AGE OF COLORBLINDNESS (2010; revised edition, 2012)
Michelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer, and she clearly has
an agenda. She makes a very persuasive case for the gradual and
little-noticed development of a "racial undercaste" in the
United States in the last twenty or thirty years, as the war on
drugs has moved forward at an alarming pace--and as many who
have served time find themselves disenfranchised and unable to
avail themselves of other advantages of US citizenship upon
their release from prison. Alexander sees these developments as
a concerted campaign to insure that large numbers of
African-American men stay at the very bottom of the economic
ladder.
One source she often draws upon, however, is the controversial
Lerone Bennett, long-time editor of Ebony magazine, whose books
have met with a mixed critical reception over the years. For
instance, Eric Foner writing in the American Historian,
expresses reservations in ]his review of his most recent book
(on Lincoln)
HTML http://www.ericfoner.com/reviews/040900latimes.html.
And Alexander cites some very astonishing facts comparing the
number of incarcerations in the 2000s to those in the 1970s, as
well as numerous facts about prison construction, numbers of
felony convictions, and many others.
She insists that crimes that are tolerated "on one side of town"
aren't tolerated in another side of town--white people have been
able to traffic in illegal drugs for recreation with impunity
while African-Americans are searched without due cause and
arrested for possession on very slight or nonexistent evidence.
She points out that prisons are now a very big business, with a
lot to lose from any diminution in the number of incarcerations.
One of her most alarming observations concerns the increasing
militarization of the police--something any occasional watcher
of the TV program Cops will have noted. The military has been
making weapons freely available to the police for quite some
time, Alexander discloses.
This is a hard-hitting book, and, fortunately for the extremely
important cause the author is backing, she doesn't adopt a
shrill or strident tone though she is clearly outraged.
Outrage seems to be in order.
--As a postscript here, it is well known that African-Americans
have been wrongfully convicted of crimes. The war on drugs is
the area where wrongful convictions have been particularly
widespread lately. But then there was a former student of mine,
Delbert Tibbs, who was wrongfully convicted (in Florida) of rape
and murder and who served 3 years in prison, two of them on
death row, before being freed:
HTML http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/us/delbert-tibbs-who-left-death-row-and-fought-against-it-dies-at-74.html?_r=0
HTML http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/08/us/delbert-tibbs-who-left-death-row-and-fought-against-it-dies-at-74.html?_r=0
--There's nothing at all new about the injustice
African-Americans have suffered in this country.
Michelle Alexander's book, calling attention to the most recent
manifestation of that injustice, should be read and discussed.
Apparently it has attracted considerable attention. Good.
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