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.”
“Cuba ... a free and sovereign state with no chains binding it to anyone...with no proconsuls directing its policy, can speak with its head held high.”
Minnesota pushed back against ICE until its visible presence seemed cut in half, but Trump does not forgive or forget, and it’s a time to be organized.
The party that installed its presidential candidate without a primary vote now blames its 2024 loss on everything except its own contempt for its base and allegiance to neo-liberal policies.
"SONNY" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Six years ago, George Floyd was murdered by police. The reaction was swift - the streets erupted and demands to defund the police spread across the country. Yet, the response from Democrats was…
