The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

"As a slave, Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather was unable to cast a ballot. The Klu Klux Klan killed his great-grandfather by beating him for trying to cast a ballot. Poll fees and literacy exams kept his father from voting, while Klan intimidation kept his grandpa from exercising his right to vote. Cotton is now unable to vote because, like many black males in the US, he was convicted of a crime and is presently on parole."

The majority of young black males in major American cities are either incarcerated or have been declared criminals for life, while the country rejoices in its "triumph over race" after Barack Obama's victory. Despite the repeal of Jim Crow legislation, a startling portion of the African American population, like their ancestors before them, is still stuck in a subservient position.

Michelle Alexander, a former lawyer who is now a legal professor, makes the bold argument in this sharp criticism that racial caste has not disappeared in America; rather, it has just been reinvented. Alexander demonstrates how, although officially adhering to the concept of color blindness, the American criminal justice system operates as a modern system of racial domination by decimating communities of color and specifically targeting Black males. The New Jim Crow calls on the civil rights movement—as well as on all of us—to prioritize mass imprisonment in any future fight for racial justice in the United States.