A review by hannahmarkezich
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander
5.0
Simply amazing. Definitely a must-read book.
Alexander's book is well-researched and well-argued. She lays out piece by piece how slavery became Jim Crow and how Jim Crow became mass incarceration. It was fascinating to see the ways in which the government and white elites took advantage of white people's anxieties about race and class and safety and weaponized them against Black Americans.
I really learned a lot from this book. I wish that it wasn't still relevant 10 years from its original publication because that would mean that we'd fixed (or took strides toward fixing) the issue of mass incarceration, but we haven't. It was interesting to read how, at the end of the book, she discusses a day when Black Americans (and even white Americans beside them) will rise up to say enough is enough with this system of policing and mass incarceration and the war on drugs because I feel like that's happening now in some ways. This book definitely fits in to the broader conversation Americans are having today about police brutality and racism and the horrifying system of mass incarceration.
This is also an excellent complement to the documentary 13th on Netflix. It touches on some of the same issues, but this book has the page space to dive far deeper into the politics and economics of mass incarceration. Michelle Alexander is actually interviewed for the documentary as well, so if you haven't see it, I definitely recommend that you read this book and watch the movie.
It was interesting but also completely horrifying to see how deeply this system of racism is rooted in our society. The system is insidious, and it affects every part of life in this county whether we acknowledge it or not. I am definitely grateful to have learned about this as I now feel more informed and better able to have discussions about this issue and look for ways that I can be effective in the fight for justice.
Please read it.
Alexander's book is well-researched and well-argued. She lays out piece by piece how slavery became Jim Crow and how Jim Crow became mass incarceration. It was fascinating to see the ways in which the government and white elites took advantage of white people's anxieties about race and class and safety and weaponized them against Black Americans.
I really learned a lot from this book. I wish that it wasn't still relevant 10 years from its original publication because that would mean that we'd fixed (or took strides toward fixing) the issue of mass incarceration, but we haven't. It was interesting to read how, at the end of the book, she discusses a day when Black Americans (and even white Americans beside them) will rise up to say enough is enough with this system of policing and mass incarceration and the war on drugs because I feel like that's happening now in some ways. This book definitely fits in to the broader conversation Americans are having today about police brutality and racism and the horrifying system of mass incarceration.
This is also an excellent complement to the documentary 13th on Netflix. It touches on some of the same issues, but this book has the page space to dive far deeper into the politics and economics of mass incarceration. Michelle Alexander is actually interviewed for the documentary as well, so if you haven't see it, I definitely recommend that you read this book and watch the movie.
It was interesting but also completely horrifying to see how deeply this system of racism is rooted in our society. The system is insidious, and it affects every part of life in this county whether we acknowledge it or not. I am definitely grateful to have learned about this as I now feel more informed and better able to have discussions about this issue and look for ways that I can be effective in the fight for justice.
Please read it.