"In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time — a new Jim Crow system. Millions of people of color are now saddled with criminal records and legally denied the very rights that their parents and grandparents fought for and, in some cases, died for.
"Affirmative action, though, has put a happy face on this racial reality. Seeing black people graduate from Harvard and Yale and become CEOs or corporate lawyers — not to mention president of the United States — causes us all to marvel at what a long way we’ve come.
"Recent data shows, though, that much of black progress is a myth. In many respects, African Americans are doing no better than they were when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and uprisings swept inner cities across America. Nearly a quarter of African Americans live below the poverty line today, approximately the same percentage as in 1968. The black child poverty rate is actually higher now than it was then. Unemployment rates in black communities rival those in Third World countries. And that’s with affirmative action!
"When we pull back the curtain and take a look at what our “colorblind” society creates without affirmative action, we see a familiar social, political, and economic structure — the structure of racial caste. The entrance into this new caste system can be found at the prison gate."
If you at all curious about the criminal justice system and the "War on Drugs" in our country The New Jim Crow is a must read.
If after you read this book you are not called to action you have obviously lost the ability to recognize the truth and you have lost every ounce of compassion you ever thought you possessed.
I cannot recommend this book enough. If you care, read it. If you have children, read it.
Once you do you will never look at our criminal justice system the same.
Article comments
1 - Famer Bob
"In this way, a new racial undercaste has been created in an astonishingly short period of time â€" a new Jim Crow system."
It would be pretty easy to defeat this new "caste" system then. Just don't do the drugs, fools. How about that?
2 - Ronald W Weathersby
Evidently Farmer Bob you just don't read fool!
The point of this entire book is the fact that although black and brown people DO NOT use or sell and certainly DO NOT distribute drugs anymore than whites they are jailed, convicted and penalized at far greater numbers.
Now, that fact may sit well with you and your particular philosophy but it is wrong and un-American.
By the way, how did Limbaugh get away with buying and using hundreds of tablets of illegal drugs? Why isn't he in prison for being a fool?
Are you concerned about the rising level of government spending? If so here is a clear area that we can reduce substantial amounts of money.
3 - Darrell Pone
Michelle Alexander’s book is a classic. She legally and factually proves what most African Americans have already known for years. The Government designed drug laws to incarcerate black men and basically make them useless to society.
Unlike Slavery where black men had a function as slaves (free labor) and Jim Crow where they took menial jobs; mass Incarceration demonstrates no use at all for black men. This is a stain on America.
Darrell Pone, MD