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.”
​​​​​​​Ann Garrison spoke to Professor Danny Shaw, who speaks fluent Haitian Creole and returned from his last trip to Haiti one month ago.
"Sitting Shiva in South Florida for Our souls/slivers of democracy …" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
Politicians and the liberal media cite "voter apathy" as the cause of reduced voter turnout, but the reality is that their devotion to corporate interests over those of the people creates a seeming…
Settler colonialism has caused the destruction of indigenous lands around the world and, as a result, the environment in which we all live. The path forward is an global struggle against these forces.
For Africans in the U.S., anger is an important first step in mentally emancipating themselves from empire and declaring war on it.
