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 1 of 2
15 Jan 2010
πŸ–¨οΈ Print Article

 

β€œMass incarceration – not attacks on affirmative action or lax civil rights enforcement – is the most damaging manifestation of the backlash against the Civil Rights Movement,” says Ms. Alexander, a longtime civil rights lawyer. The U.S. national policy of mass incarceration has created an underclass that β€œis better understood as an undercaste – a lower class 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 a racial hierarchy much like the earlier [Jim Crow and slavery] systems of control.”

Click the player below to hear part one of this Black Agenda Report interview. 

Black Mass Incarceration: The Big Payback, a BAR Interview with Michelle Alexander


More Stories


  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Without Including Biden and Blinken and the Issue of Genocide, International Criminal Court Arrest Warrants Are a Sham
    27 Nov 2024
    The International Criminal Court finally indicted Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, but this action is merely performative. If arrest warrants do not include war criminals like Joe…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Prospects for Fascism, Manning Marable, 1981
    27 Nov 2024
    Manning Marable reminds us that US fascism is institutional and normalized. The parallels of his 1981 essay with the present are obvious – US fascism remains ascendant.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Washington Post Attacks Eritrean Americans for Organizing in their Own Defense
    27 Nov 2024
    The Washington Post’s latest anti-Eritrea propaganda demonizes Eritrean immigrants defending themselves in the West.
  • Abayomi Azikiwe, Black Agenda Report Contributor
    COP29 Summit Marked by Acrimonious Debate Over Emissions and Finance
    27 Nov 2024
    Annual climate gathering reflects divisions between the industrialized states and the Global South.
  • Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor
    The End of American Thanksgivings: A Cause for Universal Rejoicing
    27 Nov 2024
    Glen Ford wrote many powerful essays, but his unflinching analysis of the history of the holiday we call Thanksgiving endures 20 years after he wrote it.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us