Part One of this interview appeared here, in the January 6 issue of BAR. On January 20, BAR will begin publishing excerpts from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness [The New Press].
“Mass incarceration has turned the Black community against itself,” says Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Black Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Mainstream organizations like the Congressional Black Caucus and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights put out laundry lists of proposed reforms, while failing to make America’s Black Gulag a priority. “If the way we pursue reforms does not contribute to the building of a movement to dismantle the system of mass incarceration,” says the veteran civil rights lawyer, “and if our advocacy does not upset the prevailing public consensus that supports the new caste system, none of the reforms, even if won, will successfully disrupt the nation’s racial equilibrium.”
Revisiting Paul Robeson’s prepared statement to the House Un-American Activities Committee–during a new era of repression.
TAKEOVER! A Human Rights Approach to Housing is a beautifully written book about poor and homeless people choosing to live and refusing to die.
Divisions with breakaway areas further hamper the resolution of broader issues.
"Love My Black Job" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
We urge people of conscience around the world to stop another United Nations invasion of Haiti.
