Racism

The theme of race plays a central role in the development of "The New Jim Crow". Even the book title evokes the racial segregationist system that notoriously characterized southern American states in the decades following the Civil War. A major difference, however, between the old Jim Crow system and mass incarceration today is where the racist intention lies. Previous systems of racialized social control in American history were explicitly racist. 'Whites only' signs, segregated lunch counters, and brutal lynchings characterize racism in the past. Today, the War on Drugs is concealed racism. It does not contain a single mandate that explicitly targets any racial group, and the Supreme Court outwardly condemns laws that discriminate based on race or ethnicity. Yet Alexander challenges readers to look beyond the rhetoric of colorblindness and see how racism is perpetuated by federal drug policy and how it is experienced on the ground...