The new Jim Crow : mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness
Record details
- ISBN: 9781595585301
- ISBN: 1595585303
- ISBN: 9781595588197
- ISBN: 1595588191
- ISBN: 9781595581037
- ISBN: 1595581030
- ISBN: 9781595586438
- ISBN: 1595586431
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Physical Description:
remote
1 online resource (xvii, 312 pages) - Edition: Revised edition /
- Publisher: New York : New Press, 2012.
- Copyright: ©2012
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-296) and index. |
Formatted Contents Note: | The rebirth of caste -- The lockdown -- The color of justice -- The cruel hand -- The new Jim Crow -- The fire this time. |
Source of Description Note: | Description based on print version record. |
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Genre: | Electronic books. Electronic books. |
Other Formats and Editions
Electronic resources
Summary:
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 it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community - and all of us - to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.