New Jim Crow

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

No cover

Michelle Alexander, Cornel West: New Jim Crow (2012, New Press, The)

English language

Published Nov. 13, 2012 by New Press, The.

ISBN:
978-1-59558-819-7
Copied ISBN!

View on OpenLibrary

5 stars (1 review)

This work argues that the War on Drugs and policies that deny convicted felons equal access to employment, housing, education, and public benefits create a permanent under caste based largely on race.As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status - much like their grandparents before them. In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as …

9 editions

Subjects

  • United states, race relations
  • Criminal justice, administration of
  • African americans, social conditions
  • Prisoners, united states
  • Race discrimination