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.”
Leftist action and analysis are most needed now that capitalism is beset by many crises, but clarity of thought and revolutionary discipline are often lacking.
There go Ol’ Schmo again…
This week’s featured authors are Maano Ramutsindela, Frank Matose, and Tafadzwa Mushonga. Ramutsindela is Professor of Geography in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the…
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Reighan Gillam. Gillam is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology…
Rage is a natural human emotion that is denied to Black people. Black rage is dangerous and is washed away, laundered, as if it were an ill-gotten gain. Too Black explains in the second part of…
