Michelle Alexander: Mass Incarceration Is The New Jim Crow

Piece Description

More African Americans are incarcerated, on probation or on parole than were enslaved in 1850. More black men are denied the right to vote today than in 1870, because they're felons. In some American cities, the majority of black men are felons for life. Felons can be discriminated against in housing and jobs. Civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander argues the mass incarceration of African Americans — the result of America's War on Drugs — has created a new racial caste system in America. She says that gone is the explicit racial language of Jim Crow. Instead, today's second–class citizens are called "criminals."

Michelle Alexander is associate professor at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Previously she was director of Stanford's Civil Rights Clinic and director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California. Her new book is "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."

The Gates Public Service Law Program brought Michelle Alexander to the University of Washington on April 13, 2010. The University Bookstore co–sponsored her talk.