American Voices • Books • Criminal Justice • Prison Policy • Race • Race & Class

Michelle Alexander and The New Jim Crow—In Compton Thursday Night

May 11, 2012
by Celeste Fremon
6 Comments


Just about the time that POTUS Obama was snarling traffic getting to his starzilla party in Studio City, civil rights attorney and best selling author Michelle Alexander was rockin’ the house across town in Compton, where she gave a 90-minute speech in front of a large and wildly enthusiastic crowd at a the New Philadelphia AME Church, talking about how Jim Crow is alive and well in this country’s criminal justice system.

Alexander is a legal scholar and a racial equality advocacy lawyer with an impressive resume that includes a Supreme Court clerkship and lots more after that.

But what has really put her on the map is her 2010 book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, in which, with mounds of research, Alexander lays out her thesis that the mass incarceration the U.S. has embraced since the mid-1980’s as its primary method of social control is, for black communities, simply devastating. The result is a second class caste system in which, in some major American cities, more than one half of all working age black men, and a growing number of black women, and other minorities, are relegated to a permanently disenfranchised status—much like in the days of Jim Crow, but in far greater numbers. Right now if you are a black man anywhere in America, there is a 32 percent chance that you’ll go to jail or prison at some point in your life.

The New Jim Crow has been the book that criminal justice activists and experts have been urgently recommending above all others these past two years—to the point that when it came out in paperback in January, it became a surprise NY Times best seller.

I first became aware of Alexander’s work when I watched an April 2010 episode of Bill Moyer’s Journal that featured her together with superstar civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson, and the combination of what they had to say grabbed my attention, as it encapsulated and quantified what I’d seen anecdotally in my reporting for years.

The usual wiggly iPhone videos below will give you a glimpse of what she has to say as they are from the very beginning of Alexander’s 90-minute talk Thursday night.

You might also enjoy the clip of Alexander with Stephen Colbert on the Cobert Report.

Better yet, just get the book.

However you do it, find a way to check out what Michelle Alexander has to say. Hers is a deeply important American voice that is very much worth your time and attention.

PS: THIS WILL BE A SHORT POSTING because everyone at WitnessLA is working on stories. So stay tuned. There’s a lot coming up soon.

IN THE MEANTIME, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS STORY ON THE CRIME REPORT: CRACKING THE BLUE WALL OF SILENCE, in which former and serving NYPD cops talk about racial profiling and arrest quotas.

ALSO CHECK OUT THE 30-YEAR SENTENCE FOR A FIRST TIME OFFENSE BY THE TEXAS GRANDMOTHER who may or may not have known she was smuggling a ton of drugs in the tour buses that she co-owned, but who got the book thrown at her because she wouldn’t take a deal and had nobody else to give up, so had nothing of value to trade to prosecutors. The Houston Chron has the story.

PS: I’M DELIBERATELY IGNORING THIS STORY, but it’s not that I didn’t see it.

6 Comments

  • I am NOT going to read the book because I already know that it is a bunch of poppycock. In this country one does not become incarcerated unless one does something really bad, like drive drunk or rob a liquor store. Sure, there’s police misconduct, like falsified facts in a police report, but more often than not it gets caught early on–the D.A. or the Court will kick it out when discovered, or even suspected.

    The old Jim Crow was enforced by governmental entities like local government; the “new” Jim Crow is largely self-inflicted.

  • We have all seen racism, and it is an ugly thing to behold, but I am not convinced that this is the primary cause of the mass incarceration of black men. Reading the Amazon reviews, we find a black woman who goes by “FIRESTARTER”, who had reviewed this book, giving it a one-star. It is and interesting read.

    This book, like so many others, tries to ignore reality. What reality? The reality is black men disproportionately commit crimes and therefore find themselves disproportionately incarcerated!

    Black people only make up 12.5% (which makes black men about 6% of the population) of the United States population. Yet black men are estimated to commit over 35% of crime (and estimates do vary…depending on the source) in this country. However this author and white liberals would have us to believe these men should be roaming the streets free and clear because they are black and historically black people have been oppressed by “the system.” I think not!

    I’m a black woman and I have NEVER been in trouble with the law. I have never sold drugs, did drugs, killed anyone, raped anyone, or committed any other crime. I have never found myself in the criminal justice system. I worked hard, went to college (and graduate school), worked a series of low wage paying part-time jobs before landing my current full-time position (in my field of expertise), and I now have something to show for my life.

    I don’t have any children out of wedlock. I don’t surround myself with negativity. I know I ALONE AM RESPONSIBLE FOR MY CHOICES AND PLIGHT.

    IF I CAN KEEP MY NOSE CLEAN THE NEXT BLACK PERSON CAN TOO!

    African Americans (I shouldn’t say black people because only African Americans seem to suffer from this self-victimization) are their own worse enemy. If you continue to tell yourself that your race makes you a perpetual victim of society don’t be surprised when you find yourself at the very bottom in society.

    Today the black community has a very serious problem: We have a large minority of people who simply do not want to do better. They don’t want to get married. They don’t want to raise their children in sensible normal conditions. They don’t want to work hard in order to achieve success. They don’t value education. They don’t believe in taking responsibility for their life choices. They don’t believe in self-reflection. They think someone owes them something. They feel entitled to other people’s success. Everything that is counter-productive and dysfunctional they gravitate towards.

    White liberals and black progressives have been using the race card to excuse their mediocre behavior and self-inflicted nonsense for so long that they now feel they are not responsible for their dysfunctional behavior.

    Now this large minority feels their race is the reason why they can’t do things like score high on the SAT, avoid committing crimes, and avoid the criminal justice system. They feel their race actually handicaps them from doing things that other races just do like work undesirable LEGIT low-paying jobs (yes, I have actually heard some people use slavery and race as an excuse for why MODERN DAY black men don’t want to work at all).

    Enough already!

    At what point are we as a people going to look around and see that things simply are not working out with our current self-victimization ideology?

    The worse thing African Americans ever did was adopt the ideology of white liberals. The only thing they care about are our votes. They will tell us whatever they think we want to hear in order to keep us dependent on them, the system, and the government. We were far better off when we subscribed to the ideology that our race would never stop us from building and educating ourselves. Today there are people who do not want us to think this way. Wake up people!

    Black women, do yourselves a favor and simply STOP making excuses for black male failure. The white man does not force any black man to commit crimes against you or your community. As often as you find yourselves on the receiving end of their nonsense you would think MOST of you would have the good sense to know that it isn’t the white man screwing up your homes and your community. When I walk out my door I’m not looking over my shoulder for a white man to rob, beat, or rape me. No…I’m looking for the person most likely to do it: A black man. And because black men CANNOT be depended on to police their own behavior (most simply do not care) and community you need to stand aside and let “the white man” “the system” etc do their job (which you pay them to do with your tax dollars) and police black men!

    Black women, you are disproportionately abused, raped, and assaulted by none other than black men…not white men…but black men. Again step aside and let someone willing to police their behavior do so. Due to your own ignorance, lack of knowledge of self, and the lifelong conditioning that says “black women must stand by black men whether they are right or wrong” you find yourself in the condition you are in today. YOU ARE FIGHTING THE WRONG BATTLE.

    9 times out of 10 the system is NOT locking up innocent people. Instead those who are guilty as charge are being locked up. And don’t come at me with the nonsense about “non-violent offenses” because as far as I’m concerned drug dealers are some of the WORSE offenders in the black community, which has been ravaged by CRACK and other drugs. Do you people realize that drugs bring crime and violence to your communities? Think about it!

    African Americans take a good hard look at the majority of your nuclear families. See a pattern? Where are the fathers/husbands? How well are the women raising the children? Why exactly do some of the children have different last names? Why aren’t the children on par with their white counterparts of the same age and grade level? Where are the black parents at the PTA meetings? Why are young black boys being put into special education at alarming rates? This list of questions could go on and on but ultimately all the answers come right back to the family…not the white man…and not the system. Take responsibility for YOUR failure.

    I believe that three main institutional factors contribute most to PRISON-USA:
    1) War on Drugs (Ron Paul would pardon ALL non-violent prisoners)
    2) Length of prison sentencing
    3) Search for Victory not Justice, by DA’s and prosecutors.
    I also believe that the largest societal factors contributing to Criminal Behavior is:
    a) 70% of black boys are fatherless in 2009.
    b) Birthrate doubled for unmarried women (ages 18-34) (1980-2005)
    c) Birthrate decreased for married women (ages 18-34) (1980-2005)

    The causes of these societal factors are complex but all stem from the breakdown of the family.
    http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_06.pdf

  • Whatever group you choose to slice or separate people into – e.g. age, gender, skin color, ethnicity, nationality, culture, sexual preference, religion, professions, ETC – there are always going to be pieces of filth in that group (some more than others). If I was a member of a group where a high percentage of that group was being arrested/incarcerated, my first reaction would not be to simply b1tch and moan about how unfairly my group was being treated/persecuted. I would look at see how legitimate those arrests/incarcerations were and, most likely after discovering that those arrests/incarcerations were legitimate, I would then TRY TO FIX MY OWN GROUP rather than keep blaming others or other things for my group continuing to do wrong and getting caught…

    If people are doing wrong and, especially if they are doing wrong and hurting others, I want them off the streets or otherwise unable to continue doing wrong – I don’t give a SH!T about what group they’re from.

    Some people need to wake the fuc& up and realize that YES, there ARE some people in YOUR group who DESERVE to be arrested/incarcerated.

  • My goodness! We should all be so learned and satiated with our own essence and self-loathing. However, if I may, I might suggest the following tome and article:

    “The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation” by John A. Eterno

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/nyregion/no-room-for-dissent-in-a-police-department-consumed-by-the-numbers.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion

    Keep the lights on, Celeste. You’re doing a fine job. Dante was right; there’s a special level of hell for everyone. This too shall pass.

  • Reading is Fundamental: Read your link; Google “Serpico”–remember him?–and you’ll find an interview with the NYT in which he says that nothing has essentially changed in the NYPD
    since his negative experience there many decades ago–remember that?–even though a number of investigatory commissions ( notably Knapp and Mollen, both of which can be Googled) have intervened betwixt then and now recommending all kinds of “reforms” that, if implemented, would’ve corrected at least the most egregious problems.

    Commissions investigate; “Reforms” recommended; nothing gets done.

    Sound familiar?

  • The incarcerated are locked-up because they came to the attention of the justice system through their behavior rather than their racial identity. Racial background is a coincidental factor being misapplied by Alexander as a causal factor that should be remedied.

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