Michelle Alexander (1) (1967–)

This has to be one of the finest polemics I have ever read on the relationship between race and society.

One cannot close this book without the uneasy feeling that not only are black males less free than they were four decades ago but that it is intentional, that the American system is intentionally working against them.

Prior to Richard Nixon's announcement of a "War on Drugs" on June 18, 1971, young back males were in America free-ish. In the intervening fifty or so years American society has turned its back on the civil rights victories of the 1960's to build a new era of mass incarceration and mass surveillance.

Today thousands of black youth languish behind bars for convictions of minor drug charges that would cause a political crisis if the laws were applied equally to black and white youth. When those same men leave prison, there is an equally barbaric code to keep them subservient to the state and forever branded as undesirables.

When this book was first published in 2010 some 65 million Americans had criminal records including tens of millions who were arrested but not convicted of crimes but were excluded from public housing. Overwhelmingly, the majority of them were blacks and brown-skinned men.

The justice system is so overwhelmed by the numbers that it is slanted toward plea bargaining youth out of the courts where they then enter a nightmare from which they do not awake.

"Entering a plea condemns a man to a form of civic death in America" and reverses the promise of the 14th Amendment which promises all citizens due process and equal protection under the laws. In point of practice, the War on Drugs ensures that blacks will suffer the most grievously.

And if the accused enter American jails as poor, indigent, and often homeless individuals, they will sure as shooting come out equally poor.

The story of Florida is most telling, where jail book-in fees, jail per-diem fees, public defender application fees, pre-sentence report fees, public defenders re-coupment fees, residential and work-release program fees, parole and probation supervision fees, late fees, and payment program fees permanently attach to jailbirds.

70% of offenders and ex-offenders are high school dropouts and functionally illiterate. They don't qualify even if most employers would hire them, which they won't. Even if they are hired, up to 65% of their wages can be withheld from them for child support (which accumulates while they are in jail), and up to 35% for court related fees.

And if they don't pay they can go back to prison.

The system of mass incarceration in America is a success, but not at deterring crime. It succeeds at controlling and subsuming black America in a New Jim Crow era.… (more)