by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, Fall 2009)
The white backlash against Black success in tearing down Jim Crow led to a new form of racial domination: mass Black incarceration. “A new race-neutral language was developed for appealing to old racist sentiments.” The “war on drugs” was central to the new system of control. “Before 1988, one year was the maximum prison sentence for possession of any amount of drug.” Bill Clinton was to become the president most responsible for creating “the current racial undercaste.”
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Part One
by Michelle Alexander (The New Press, Fall 2009)
The editors believe mass Black incarceration is one of the greatest challenges facing Black America. With permission of the author and The New Press, BAR is republishing this important new work in serial form.
From the Introduction:
The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare. We avoid talking about caste in our society because we are ashamed of our racial history. We also avoid talking about race. We even avoid talking about class. Conversations about class are resisted in part because there is a tendency to imagine that one’s class reflects upon one’s character. What is key to America’s understanding of class is the persistent belief—despite all evidence to the contrary—that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. We recognize that mobility may be difficult, but the key to our collective self-image is the assumption that mobility is always possible, so failure to move up reflects on one’s character. By extension, the failure of a race or ethnic group to move up reflects very poorly on the group as a whole.
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. And the major institutions with which they come into contact are designed to prevent their mobility. To put the matter starkly: The current system of control permanently locks a huge percentage of the African American community out of the mainstream society and economy. The system operates through our criminal justice institutions, but it functions more like a caste system than a system of crime control. Viewed from this perspective, the so- called underclass is better understood as an undercaste—a lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society. Although this new system of racialized social control purports to be colorblind, it creates and maintains racial hierarchy much as earlier systems of control did. 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.
Chapter One
The Rebirth of Caste
CONTINUED>>>
http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/new-jim-crow-part-1
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