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

Importante leitura para se entender um pouco mais de cono tudo era ainda pior há alguns anos.

A comprehensive outline of how racism and discrimination has been perpetuated through the American Legal system - this book gives you into how the USA is where it is today. It's particularly salient in the wake of George Floyd and other victims of this system

Bien

Probably the best book in modern times about civil rights issues and crony capitalism

Slavery supposedly ended in 1865, at the end of The Civil War. So, we are told. Then, here comes Professor Michelle Alexander to tell us that simply is not true. Slavery's child was something called Jim Crow, a whole system of laws designed to thwart the lives of African-American people on so many different levels. In order to fight Jim Crow, The Civil Rights Movement waged war on many fronts, many of them legal. The thinking went that if the legal barriers were dropped, the lives of African-Americans would be so much better. Or, so it was thought. Then came Ronald Reagan into the office of the Presidency. A War was waged, the so-called, "War On Drugs." This has led to the fact that all over America, people of color, but particularly Black Men and the poor, are herded into prisons, with all kinds of drug charges and laws. These charges result in a whole system that selectively targets where it will be "enforcing" the drug laws. If a certain community has a predominance of drug activity, but yet law enforcement never bothers to scrutinize that community, then drug dealers from that community will never be charged. Studies have shown that there is no more drug activity in Black Communities than in others, but the Prison/Industrial Complex is set up in such a way that only certain communities are scrutinized, or disproportionally, scrutinized for them. Of course if the police never look for drugs in a certain place, they will never find them. When those who have been caught up in the system become released from prison, now it becomes "legal" to discriminate against them. Their "records" can be used to discriminate against them in employment, housing, education, in a word--everything. Welcome to "The New Jim Crow." Right here in America. Home of the free. A Democracy. Who wants to laugh? (to keep from crying?). In thumbnail sketch, this is what Michelle Alexander lays out in her book, the unfairness of it all, how it makes a mockery of the concept of justice and Democracy. It is Professor Alexander's opinion that the phenomenon that she spells out, The Prison/Industrial Complex, should become the basis for the next Civil Rights Movement. In this respect, I think that she is right. Although Professor Alexander is an attorney, what is most fascinating about her book is how she tells her personal story as basically being an oblivious, average citizen, who thought that when people said the war on drugs was a war on Black people, they were exaggerating. But, as she began to look into things, she saw the truth of this thesis and ultimately felt she had to do something about it. This, in part, led to her book. This book is written in a very readable style so that it is available to the average reader. I think Professor Alexander's book is excellent in educating and bringing to the spotlight what needs to be our next Civil Rights Movement. Words cannot really express my gratefulness to her for doing this. In talking about the Prison/Industrial Complex, there is another book that can be found right here on Amazon that complements Alexander's. It's called "The Anatomy Of Prison Life" by Charles L. Hinsley. It is the most honest and real account that one will ever find on what it means to be in prison, written from the eyes of a Black Man first/Former Warden perspective. It is well worth your time. One should mull over in one's mind, as one reads, the connection between the Alexander and Hinsley books. For those interested in the more general subject of Black Studies, there's a book called, "Reality's Pen: Reflections On Family, History & Culture," by Thomas D. Rush that gives some good background to the 2 books mentioned above. Rush's book can also be found right here on Amazon. In Rush's work, we get to see the "average Joe's" fascinating 1989 account of two very long conversations with what will eventually become the first African-American President in American History. It's good to get this account because it occurs long before President Obama is famous, between two people just going about the daily business of their lives. What makes the interaction even more compelling is the fact that Obama innocently lays out an image of what he hopes to see occur within his romantic life, a romantic life prior to the time of his introduction to Michelle. It is oh so fascinating, and can be found in the piece on page 95 of Rush's work called, "You Never Know Who God Wants You To Meet." Rush's book also contains additional Black Cultural anecdotes of richness, making it an overall, well-rounded book and worthy of your purchase.