The New Jim Crow

Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition

By: Michelle Alexander

Narrated by: Karen Chilton

Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it”. As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is “undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.”

Now, 10 years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a 10th-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

©2010, 2012, 2020 Michelle Alexander (P)2012, 2020 Recorded Books

An extremely well constructed argument

I heard Michelle Alexander speaking about this book, and immediately her premise intrigued me. I'd always known that our criminal justice system was biased, but the scope of it was shocking... and thinking about it as a system as detrimental as Jim Crow had never even occurred to me.

Her exploration of the topic in the book is fascinating. I'm halfway through and I'm already amazed, frustrated and enraged. I've always been concerned about social justice and civil rights. I went to law school because of my passion for these issues. But I didn't realize until this book, just how oppressive and racist our supreme court has been. I'd seen all the cases she wrote about, and had been independently outraged at each of them... but I didn't realize how they all worked in concert to leave no judicial remedy to systematic racism.

As a white man, I find that other white men will occasionally make racist comments or jokes around me. I believe that most of these people feel comfortable doing so only because they believe that real institutional racism is a thing of the past, and so that their own bias is benign. "We have a black president, so racism is over". This book is arming me with a fantastic rebuttal to those people.

This book should be read by every employer, landlord, politician, judge, and prosecutor in the US. Actually it should be read be read by every American, period.

I've often wondered how so many white people could have stayed silent and complacent in the face of Jim Crow. Now I realize that I am guilty of doing the same under a regime that is just as harmful.

This book has changed the way I look at the world. Hopefully it will spark serious reform in this country.

Concise history of our racially structured system.

You already know most of the stuff in here. But to see it all laid out - the documented history of our society's evolution from slavery to the current era of mass incarceration is very sobering.

The socially conservative methodology and rhetoric repeated from the "Southern Redemption" to the post Civil Rights movement of the "Dixiecrats" split from the Democratic party partly forming the new GOP, to Reagan's "War On Drugs" to Clinton's "War On Crime" to Donald Trump. It is a top down, racially biased system from the SCOTUS on through.

Yes, I know President Elect Biden has had a prominent role in the history leading to its current state. Has he truly learned the error his ways? Will he really champion positive change in this regard, or is it all window dressing? We don't know. It's a chance taken given such limited choices. But if it is real, then I believe we have to stay focused and try - especially if the Democrats win control of the Senate this week because then there will be NO EXCUSES.

It's a downer, I know. But these problems existed long before Trump and Covid, and we will be returning to that world in 2021. I think I learned a lot in 2020 and will continue. I've taken stands that cost me relationships with family and friends. But it's not over. Maybe it never will be.

But that's what a resolution is, right? A pledge to be resolute.

Dig deeper. Be better. Happy New Year.

necessary read

What did you love best about The New Jim Crow?

I found more how prejudice permeates our world still.

Any additional comments?

I think everyone in America should read this necessary book. Michelle Alexander is well schooled in this topic and has done her research well. Only God can turn our hearts away from fear and hate but we can educate ourselves in how to recognize the fear in our hearts and the hearts of others.

Very good but flawed

Very good but flawed

This is one of the better books I have read on race issues in the US. It is quite valuable, but less than perfect in several dimensions.

On the good side: The book falls firmly in the "antiracist" subgenre. The author questions several mainstream standard civil rights activist positions, particularly regarding affirmative action. The evidence presented is quite compelling that, for whatever reason, the US justice system is not racially impartial and is particularly unfair to black males. If you don't already believe and admit this, I suspect the statistics presented in this book won't end up convincing you. For most readers the usefulness of this book will be to clarify the scope and details of the issues, not to change minds.

Several troubling incentives are explained including Civil Forfeitures, Funding Police by Fines, Private Prisons, Federal Grants Dependent on Drug Arrests, and CIA & DOJ Support for Contra Drug Traffickers. Statistics are presented that convincingly demonstrate that the US justice system is both substantially more aggressive and less effective in reducing violence & crime then most first world countries.

On the less good side: There is a LOT of repetitive material. There is a lot of out of date material presented (the book was "updated" in 2020, but the update was rather minor other than the introduction, thus most of the data is from prior to 2011). There has been some progress on some of these issues over the last 10 years. The author occasionally seems to let her justifiable anger have free reins.

The author seems to misinterpret middle class views on drugs. She views the relative lack of anxiety regarding drug use by housewives and frat boys to have a racial basis. I think it is more about poor drug users that steal things to support their habit. It seems to me the middle class does not care much about drug use as long as the drug users don't steal from them.

The author is attempting to persuade, not to fairly present both sides. For example regarding 3-strike laws, the cases presented focus on the relatively minor third strikes, but fail to mention the full criminal histories in each case (many more than three serious felonies). I don't support mandatory minimums, including 3-strike laws, but it is not fair to focus only on the third strike, not the whole picture. The California 3-strikes law was passed by a state wide vote by 72%.

Compellingly demonstrating WHY the US justice system is racially unfair is much more complicated and this book is less successful in demonstrating this "why".

The narration is excellent.

good so far

I truly loved the information given and explain to help clarify why things are done and how they are perpetuated. in our lives there are things we don't want exposed but are needed to learn about even if it is uncomfortable.

...those who don't know history

Or fail to read this book run the risk of repeating it to the peril of millions of mankind. Heavy yet necessary.

I have recommended this to all my friends.

This book offers EVIDENCE not one-sided opinions. I wish this book would make it into more people's library.

Long but eye opening

Overall conclusion. This book is not easy to accept because it pushes a hard reality. That America has found a way institutionalize the oppression of some people. This is not a black vs white thing, it is no longer a civil rights thing, it is a human rights thing. If we want to be the leader of the free world we have to address the issues raised in these pages. It's hard to read and believe.

Two good things about the book
1) it was supported by data. The author did not rely heavily on emotional stories (although there are some), rather the author laid out the facts.
2) the author made some bold claims and then broke them down into their pieces making it easy to digest.

Two negative things.
1) the book length, it seemed to get long winded at times. I'm not usually a fan of abridged books but this one could use some trimming.
2) the emotional stories, while some were great examples...some seemed to be placed for an emotional response more then a exclamation point to the narrative.

A must for anyone with children

The New Jim Crow provides an excellent narrative of the African American experience and exposes the social constructs affecting the African American condition. Although the work focused on African Americans, it's relevant to all demographics coming into contact with the criminal justice system.

A must read

This book sheds light on the consequences of Mass incarceration. I didn't fathom the many ways that people of every race are affected. If you want to know the political background of the drug war this will inform you. This book will awaken your mind. It certainly did mine.