"The fact that more than half of the young black men in any large American city are currently under the control of the criminal justice system (or saddled with criminal records) is not--as many argue--just a symptom of poverty or poor choices, but rather evidence of a new racial caste system at work."

-Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Longtime civil rights advocate, Ohio State University law professor, and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander will be holding a discussion and book signing on Thursday, February 25th at the WLCAC Freedom Hall on 4:30PM and on Friday, February 26th at Eso Won Bookstore on 7pm. This event, hosted by Community Rights Campaign, All of Us or None, and Drug Policy Alliance will explore how mass imprisonment of poor black and brown men and women is the most dramatic form of racial injustice in the United States.

A New Racial Caste System

Alexander believes any fight for justice must place ending racial basis in the criminal justice system at its center. In her book, Alexander explores two other historic examples of mass racial injustices in the United States-- first slavery then Jim Crow, a form of state and locally enforced racial segregation from 1876-1965. Alexander then tracks how these two past forms of racial caste systems relate to the current mass incarceration of people of color and how it is used as a tool for depriving people of their rights.

She notes that people who have been labeled a felon face employment discrimination, housing discrimination, inability to vote, and lack many other public benefits. She declares, "as a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect,
than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow." She powerfully argues that contrary to idea of America in the age of colorblindness, racial injustice is alive and well. In her own words, "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it."

Blogging in Huffington Post: A Halt to Racial Progress?

In recent blog entry to the Huffington Post, Alexander cites the statistic that in some states, African Americans make up to 90 percent of drug prisoners and are up to 57 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug crimes than whites. She declares, "the clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey who have defied the odds and achieved great power, wealth and fame. "