Michelle Alexander at Riverside: New Jim Crow convict under-caste

Legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues persuasively we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control. ---More African Americans are under correctional control today than were enslaved in 1850--- Alexander reviews American racistl history from the colonies to the Clinton administration, delineating its deliberate transformation into the war on drugs. She provides analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon former inmates who will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives, denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Most provocatively, she reveals how both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of injustice. She spoke at Riverside Church in Manhattan May 21, 2011. Camera: Joe Friendly


Michelle Alexander is a longtime civil rights advocate and litigator. She won a 2005 Soros Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Mortiz College of Law at Ohio State University. Alexander served for several years as director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, and subsequently directed the Civil Rights Clinics at Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor. Alexander is a former law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, and has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is her first book. Audio: Riverside Church, Camera: Joe Friendly

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[SMOKING5STRING]

ok so if you're a dike i should just over look your agenda?

[joefriendly]

@SMOKING5STRING Don't jump to conclusions from her hair style. Michelle is not a dyke. She's married with 3 kids.

[Blackeyedpeas1937]

Okay, if African Americans are afraid of "hyper-incarceration" why not just stop doing things that are illegal? How is that slavery?

[joefriendly]

@Blackeyedpeas1937 The laws criminalizing marijuana, for example, are unconstitutional, infringing upon constitutionally protected individual human rights like liberty and freedom of thought. The basis of the legislation is merely arbitrary politics rather than scientific fact. Marijuana is on the Fed's Schedule 1, as if no medical use whatsoever, with the greatest penalties, when the NIH holds patent 6630507 for medical use of marijuana. It's political oppression, low folks aren't to feel high

[mochajoe2]

@Blackeyedpeas1937 WELL WE ALL KNOW (IF UR A TRUE INTELLECTUAL AND READING ALL THE RIGHT BOOKS) THAT AFRICAN AMERICANS AND LATINOS ARE FORCED TO DO THESE CRIMES AS MEANS OF SURVIVAL IN THE GHETTO AND PROJECTS. IT'S EXACTLY LIKE SLAVERY THERE ARE PARALLELS LIKE NOT BEINGA BLE TO VOTE... THE REASON WHY ITS HYPER INCARCERATION IS BECAUSE ITS FOCOSED ON CLASS, THEN RACE, AND THEN LOCATION. POOR BLACK LIVING IN THE GHETTO. POOR LATINOS LIVING IN THE PROJECTS

[mochajoe2]

@SMOKING5STRING HAHAHAH! WOW!!! SHE HAS CHILDREN AND IS MARRIED... STEREOTYPING MUCH????

[msscott73]

@joefriendly I look it up and found that out. however, people who don't like LGBTIQA use such a derogatory word like "dike".

[mccranky2]

It's funny how white folk always got so much to say about black folks. Look at yourselves and quit stealin from our culture and others all of the damn time.  ..and keep them white girlz in check and keep them out of our neighborhoods, too.

[future4you]

Historical lows in crime are because of incarceration. The bad guys are in jail.

[future4you]

Black people creating crime is it "The biggest myth" Oh really! I like her to explain the home security footage that displays black people doing crimes at stores and home invasions around the country. How does she explain the black people themselves around the country trying to move away from these areas of "myth"! This woman is delusional.

[future4you]

I just listen to your interview on NPR. Where can I start. You want society to embrace people with felonies. The message I got out of your interview is that you hate middle class white people. You can't stand people who keep their nose clean and don't do crime. Yes people who go to prison no longer fit in society and rightly so. I agree incarceration is bad! The death penalty would be a much better option for the crime problem.