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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Paperback – January 16, 2012

by Michelle Alexander (Author), Cornel West (Introduction)

2,774 customer reviews

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Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action."

Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Devastating. . . . Alexander does a fine job of truth-telling, pointing a finger where it rightly should be pointed: at all of us, liberal and conservative, white and black.
—Forbes

Alexander is absolutely right to fight for what she describes as a “much-needed conversation” about the wide-ranging social costs and divisive racial impact of our
criminal-justice policies.
—Newsweek

Invaluable . . . a timely and stunning guide to the labyrinth of propaganda, discrimination, and racist policies masquerading under other names that comprises what we call justice in America.
—Daily Kos

Many critics have cast doubt on the proclamations of racism’s erasure in the Obama era, but few have presented a case as powerful as Alexander’s.
—In These Times

Carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable.
—Publishers Weekly

[Written] with rare clarity, depth, and candor.
—Counterpunch

A call to action for everyone concerned with racial justice and an important tool for anyone concerned with understanding and dismantling this oppressive system.
—Sojourners

Undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.
—Birmingham News

About the Author

Michelle Alexander is an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Formerly the director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Project in Northern California, Alexander served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun. Cornel West is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University.

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: The New Press (January 16, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1595586431
ISBN-13: 978-1595586438
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 2,774 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #393 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Criminology
- #2 in Books > Law > Criminal Law > Criminal Procedure
- #2 in Books > Law > Rules & Procedures

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Jessica Sullivan

Essential reading

April 5, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

I came into this book with a pretty decent grasp on Alexander's thesis—thanks in part to the deserved hype her work has received over the years—but found myself captivated as she connected the dots on so many different aspects of mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, Jim Crow, and the historical intersection between classism and racism.

Alexander notes in her preface that she wrote this book specifically for people who already care about racial justice, and if you're one of those people, I urge you to read this with the promise that you will come away from it with a much more comprehensive understanding of our current racial caste system.

It's so well-researched, so informative, and so compelling. I've seen some readers lament that Alexander spends parts of the second half of the book rehashing arguments from the first half, but this approach actually worked for me: by reiterating certain points throughout, she helped me better understand their context within the bigger picture.

Finally, I have to say that reading this book now—during this point in time—was especially impactful. I learned that there's a deep history of politicians and wealthy whites exploiting white working class vulnerabilities and racial resentments in order to preserve power and deliberately driving a wedge between poor whites and poor minorities. With so much talk right now about the economic anxieties of white working class Trump voters, I came away from this book with an even deeper conviction that pandering to poor and working class whites exclusively is absolutely not the answer. Rather, we need a real movement that addresses class struggles among all races so that we don't risk history continuing to repeat itself.

18 people found this helpful

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February 8, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This entire book is a MUST read, especially for every US citizen! It takes you from the very beginnings of the War on Drugs, through how the laws are unequally applied (both by law enforcement & the legal system) to the mass incarceration we have today. It then goes on to explain how this new labeling system is then used to discriminate against a large portion of the population, from housing to voting. It's a fascinating & disheartening book that I'll be recommending to everyone for a long time.

It also explains a great many of the news stories we've seen exploding across our screens in recent days. How our local police departments became so heavily militarized. How so many of our citizens are being stopped for a motor vehicle stop, where a broken tail light can so quickly escalate into a shooting. Honestly so much of this book hit home with regard to the current news stories about Philandro Castile and others, that I had to stop reading this book for a little while and just watch the story play out across my TV screen for what became days. I seriously cannot recommend this book enough, it is very timely indeed!

16 people found this helpful

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Pinswindletin

Urgent, devastating, essential reading

September 29, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Absolutely essential reading for anyone who cares about social justice and racial equality in the United States. In this book Michelle Alexander clearly describes how it has come to pass that despite "colorblind" laws, we have developed a society where there is what amounts to a racialized undercaste of black and brown people, labeled as "felons" through the War on Drugs and as such subject to completely legal discrimination in housing, employment, federal assistance, and other areas, and often disenfranchised for life.

Alexander shows how the war on drugs has resulted in vastly unequal outcomes by race, even though all studies show that whites and people of color use drugs at the same rates. She shows clearly through careful, logical analysis how this system operates, how it has been inoculated against legal challenge at every level (which was shocking and deeply disturbing to me) and how the lifelong effects of being caught in this dragnet never end.

This book is urgently needed now more than ever. If there is any hope of healing the poisonous legacy of slavery in this country, it is imperative that this system of oppression be understood clearly, and dismantled permanently, without allowing a new version of racial control to spring up in its place.

16 people found this helpful

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Most recent customer reviews

Kierre

Must Read

This book had been on my list to read for a while. Finally got around to reading it and I’m glad I did.

Published 7 hours ago

Sam

Hard book to hear, but critical.

We will never eliminate racism until we eliminate capitalism. Capitalism profits too much, directly and indirectly, from the black bodies imprisoned to let their source of power,...Read more

Published 2 days ago

Must have.

Must have in your budding library.

Published 2 days ago

edgard

Stay woke

Great book. Educated my self on the modern slavery of today. Got a better understanding why people of color feel they are undervalued by society.

Published 5 days ago

I rather not say

Super bright and accurate colors

Lasted about 3 yesrs. Super bright and accurate colors.

Published 5 days ago

Rasheed

An Eye Opener

One of the metrics I use for a book of this nature is how much I learned. In "The New Jim Crow" Michelle Alexander is attempting to prove that there is a new undercaste...Read more

Published 7 days ago

Vikram R

Eye opening

Regardless of your take on Michelle’s views on how to solve the mass incarceration problem, her breakdown of the current social structure of mass incarceration is convincingly...Read more

Published 7 days ago

Cateline Corbin

Five Stars

purchased for in house library

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