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Black Silent Majority: The Rockefeller Drug Laws and the Politics of Punishment Hardcover – September 28, 2015

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Michael Javen Fortner (Author)
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4.8 out of 5 stars 4 customer reviews
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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Harvard University Press (September 28, 2015)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0674743997
  • ISBN-13: 978-0674743991
  • Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #580,664 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 starsTimely, balanced, and informative
By L. M. Crane on November 4, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Balanced, well researched, and informative, The Black Silent Majority provides a timely review of how drugs, crime, and racism intersected to affect the black middle class and lead to harsher drug laws. Currently we hear much about "mass incarceration" and its racial implications. Before we can address the subject, we need to understand it. Why did we start increasing drug and violent crime sentence length? When did first occur? Is it all secondary to racism? If not, what other factors led to increasing incarceration of individuals, primarily those of color? Fortner's book stands out for its reasoned approach in explaining a complex history and helps us understand similar problems today. His book covers the time period from the Civil War up to Governor Rockefeller's enactment of harsh drug crime laws in New York in 1973. This information is timely for today's discussion because everything that happened up to 1973 has just repeated itself. Every issue we discuss today was discussed then. Every solution presented today, was also presented previously. What worked and what didn't?

Contrast Fortner's book with Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow" Like Fortner, she does considerable research and outlines our racist legal history very well. Unfortunately, Alexander cites many of the facts selectively, highlighting those that superficially seem to make her point, mainly that white racists, in an attempt to control blacks when Jim Crow laws seemed to be fading, made laws that unfairly singled out blacks and increased their sentences in order to get them off the streets. She specifically cites Nixon, Reagan, and Clinton as leaders in this effort.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars
By Noah Painter on July 13, 2016
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Balanced and meticulous research.
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4.0 out of 5 starsChallenging the narrative of the drug war, giving prison ...
By Albert Stabler on November 21, 2015
Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase
Challenging the narrative of the drug war, giving prison abolitionists important things to think about in regard to public safety, and how black lives need to matter as victims of crime as well as targets of police.
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5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars
By Amazon Customer on October 19, 2015
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Well chronicled. Enlightening.
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