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.”
On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of NATO, we reprint W.E.B. Du Bois’ 1949 powerful testimony against the US militarization of Europe and the world.
Reaction to the first 2024 debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump focused on Biden’s performance. Ajamu Baraka, Black Agenda Report editor and columnist, analyzes the politics behind that debate…
Rwanda’s economic miracle is a lie.
Million Worker March 20th Anniversary: Project 2025— Keep Death ‘Alive?’ is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
The 50-year-old neo-liberal agenda explains why political choices in this country provide little change that benefits the masses of people. The recent midterm election results will not bring about an…
