Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Black Mass Incarceration: The Big Payback, a BAR Interview with Michelle Alexander. Part 2 of 2
13 Jan 2010
🖨️ Print Article

Part One of this interview appeared here, in the January 6 issue of BAR. On January 20, BAR will begin publishing excerpts from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [The New Press].

“Mass incarceration has turned the Black community against itself,” says Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Black Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Mainstream organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights put out laundry lists of proposed reforms, while failing to make America’s Black Gulag a priority. “If the way we pursue reforms does not contribute to the building of a movement to dismantle the system of mass incarceration,” says the veteran civil rights lawyer, “and if our advocacy does not upset the prevailing public consensus that supports the new caste system, none of the reforms, even if won, will successfully disrupt the nation’s racial equilibrium.”

 


More Stories


  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Mamdani and the Zionist Shakedown
    07 Oct 2026
    Progressive candidates rarely remain so after winning public office. Zohran Mamdani is no exception, but his capitulation to New York zionists angered his supporters, and the people he hoped to…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ARTICLE: “Trade in Blacks” Practiced in Haiti; Tension Among Peasants Increases,” Jacques Roumain, 1937
    07 Oct 2026
    “Between October 2 and October 8, 1937, between 15,000 and 40,000 Haitians and Black Dominicans were slaughtered by Dominican troops…”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ethiopia and Eritrea on the Brink
    07 Oct 2026
    Ethiopia and Eritrea are on the brink of a war that could further destabilize the Red Sea, disrupt oil tanker traffic, and drive gas prices even higher.
  • Black Alliance For Peace
    The Black Alliance for Peace Condemns Renewal of Neocolonial Gang Suppression Force UN Mandate in Haiti
    07 Oct 2026
    The UN's renewal of the Gang Suppression Force mandate is part of a wider hemispheric project to reassert military control across the Americas. Caribbean leaders cannot claim to support a Zone of…
  • The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
    An open letter to the honorable people of the United States of America
    07 Oct 2026
    The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has issued a letter addressed to the American people, outlining its views on recent developments and Iran-U.S. relations.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us