Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow

The university I work for brought in an amazing speaker for our Martin Luther King Jr. Keynote Address: Michelle Alexander.  Professor Alexander works at The Ohio State University where she holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity*.  She also is a  contributor at the Huffington Post and Race Talk.

Image via http://moritzlaw.osu.edu

Her speech was centered around the topic of The New Jim Crow, which is the title of her new book.  She discussed ways in which the criminal justice system has taken over the job that Jim Crow and enslavement started.  Have we come so far since then?  Professor Alexander says no, in fact black men are worse off today than they were in 1850.  She skillfully integrated hard statistics about the war on drugs and the ‘get tough’ policing movement into a larger narrative about the effects of disenfranchisement laws and other policies designed to relegate criminals and felons to a lower societal caste.

Take a look at a recorded speech she made just about a year ago, which is quite similar (but not as polished) as the one she shared tonight:

If you prefer to read rather than watch, catch her over on the Huffington Post:

The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years.  Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently are at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared.  Quintupled, in fact.  And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs.  Drug offenses alone account for about two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population.

-The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste

Cover via Amazon

This is The New Jim Crow. People of color are rounded up — frequently at young ages — for relatively minor drug offenses, branded felons, and then relegated to a permanent second-class status in which they may be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and subjected to legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. Those who are lucky enough to get a job upon release from prison find that up to 100 percent of their wages may be garnished to pay fees, fines, and court costs as well as the costs of their imprisonment and accumulated child support. What, realistically, do we expect these folks to do? When those labeled felons fail under this system to make it on the outside — not surprisingly, about 70 percent fail within 3 years — we throw up our hands and wonder where they all went. Or we chastise them for being poor fathers and for failing to contribute to their families. It’s a set up. This system isn’t about crime control; it about racial control. Yes, even in the age of Obama.

-Where Have All the Black Men Gone?

Thanks to my university for bringing Professor Alexander to boldly share the truth with us!

* I had the pleasure of doing some copy editing work for the Kirwan Institute’s journal, Race/Ethnicity a few years back.  Great folks doing important work.  

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