Books to change world
The Muse.
July 5, 2016
‘7 New Books That Will Change the Way You See the World…’
#6 The New Jim Crow
Subtitle: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Author: Michelle Alexander
‘Many people believe that because the U.S. has a black president we are now in a post-racial society and that there’s now a level playing field and therefore anyone who complains is just “playing the race card.” What this book shows is that a selectively-enforced “war on drugs” and resulting mass incarceration of black men simply replaced Jim Crow laws as a means of social control, making upward mobility nearly impossible.’
Best Quote
‘What is completely missed in the rare public debates today about the plight of African Americans is that a huge percentage of them are not free to move up at all. It is not just that they lack opportunity, attend poor schools, or are plagued by poverty. They are barred by law from doing so… Like Jim Crow (and slavery) mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.’