New York : New Press, 2010.
xi, 290 p. ; 24 cm.
This is a book I've been wanting to read since it first came out in 2010. It received a lot of praise, and time has proven that the praise was not misplaced.
In the last couple of years - especially following the killings of Treyvon Martin and Michael Brown and the subsequent emergence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement - the national debate on the injustices of law enforcement and the criminal justice system toward black people in the US has taken on a vibrant and expansive life. Reading The New Jim Crow during the summer of 2016, I couldn't help but wonder how amazed Michelle Alexander must feel about events that have occurred in the ten years since she published the book.
Her book is a thorough, well researched, and toughly argued case against the US criminal justice system - especially the mass incarceration of African Americans since the ramping up of the War on Drugs.
What makes her book especially powerful - in addition to its research data and passion for justice - is that it shows how the new mass incarceration of black people is simply a continuation of the historic pattern of racism in the US adapting to new social changes and traditions in order to reestablish the oppression of African Americans: first slavery, then after the Civil War and reconstruction comes Jim Crow, and after the Civil Rights movement and legal gains, comes the War on Drugs and the lopsided application of it against people of color.
It's a powerful book and still very timely. I'd recommend it to any student wanting to research or understand mass incarceration and institutional race
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