Title: The New Jim Crow Pdf Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Author: Michelle Alexander
Published Date: 2012
Page: 312
Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.
Essential reading I came into this book with a pretty decent grasp on Alexander's thesis—thanks in part to the deserved hype her work has received over the years—but found myself captivated as she connected the dots on so many different aspects of mass incarceration, the War on Drugs, Jim Crow, and the historical intersection between classism and racism.Alexander notes in her preface that she wrote this book specifically for people who already care about racial justice, and if you're one of those people, I urge you to read this with the promise that you will come away from it with a much more comprehensive understanding of our current racial caste system.It's so well-researched, so informative, and so compelling. I've seen some readers lament that Alexander spends parts of the second half of the book rehashing arguments from the first half, but this approach actually worked for me: by reiterating certain points throughout, she helped me better understand their context within the bigger picture.Finally, I have to say that reading this book now—during this point in time—was especially impactful. I learned that there's a deep history of politicians and wealthy whites exploiting white working class vulnerabilities and racial resentments in order to preserve power and deliberately driving a wedge between poor whites and poor minorities. With so much talk right now about the economic anxieties of white working class Trump voters, I came away from this book with an even deeper conviction that pandering to poor and working class whites exclusively is absolutely not the answer. Rather, we need a real movement that addresses class struggles among all races so that we don't risk history continuing to repeat itself.Solid Points Overshadowed by an Obvious Bias While Alexander makes several good points about the dilemma of the US criminal Justice system, a system admittedly with many flaws, she constantly employs false dichotomies and uses single statistics to overreach and convey a conclusion that simply isn't supported by her evidence. It's hard to take cold, generalized statistics and apply them to every single individual case accurately. When you begin taking individual cases one by one, these cold statistics don't always show the conclusion that someone like this author hopes they might.In one instance, the author attempts to paint President Clinton as a closeted racist, liberal sellout, and conservative crony intent on deploying the death sentence on as many black males as he can in order to sway white voters by falsely reporting the details of an execution he attended while Gov. of Arkansas. In the first chapter the author writes that in an effort to appeal to the white lower class voter,"Bill Clinton vowed that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he. True to his word, just weeks before the critical New Hampshire primary, Clinton chose to fly home to Arkansas to oversee the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a mentally impaired black man who had so little conception of what was about to happen to him that he asked for the dessert from his last meal to be saved for him until the morning."At first glance I found this to be quite an appalling thing for the then Governor to focus on. It seemed as though some mentally impaired man had been a victim of his own impairment, possibly committing a crime he had no intention of committing or any knowledge of what he was actually doing, and that the state of Arkansas was about to murder him simply for being less intelligent than the general public. Alexander makes it sound as though this man was innocent. Her words lead you to believe Bill Clinton is the monster in this story and that Rector was the victim of racial prejudice.What she didn't write, is that Ricky Rector murdered a man at a club because the bouncer wouldn't let his friend, who wouldn't pay the $3 cover charge, in to the building. Rector became angry, pulled a gun, and fired several shots at the bouncer, wounding two bystanders and killing one man instantly, after the man was struck in the throat and spine by Rector's .38 caliber revolver round. Rector fled the scene, evaded police for 3 days, and eventually agreed to surrender to a police officer he'd known since childhood. This police officer, Robert Martin, visited Rector at Rector's mother's house, where it was implied the surrender would occur. Once in the house, Robert Martin was eventually shot twice in the back by Rector, and died shortly after. Rector now had 2 assaults and 2 murder's on his list of pending charges. And by the way, he is not mentally impaired, at all. That comes next.Rector, realizing his grievous error in life choices decides enough is enough and walks out the back of his mother's house, having just shot and killed Robert Martin, and puts the gun to his own head. He fires, but misses slightly. The round penetrates his skull, destroying his frontal lobe, but leaving him alive nonetheless. This is where his "mental impairment" begins.This doesn't sound like much of a victim to me. This mental impairment the author appeals to is one of his own doing, and one resulting from a choice he made to kill himself after consciously deciding to fire several shots into a crowd of people and then intentionally killing an indefensible man. This sort of sweeping logic the author does in order to keep the dirt she want's out and the rest under the rug makes for a difficult and frustrating read. You want to agree with her on most points, but she blatantly misrepresents the facts on so many occasions that you end up writing amazon reviews to express your frustration.This book started off okay, but it's false implications like this that show the author's intentions. While they are likely coming from a point of genuine concern, they are not in good faith, nor those of someone coming from an unbiased point of view. Read it, but don't just take it at it's word. Just like any other opinion.
Birthright Citizens pdf
The Hidden Rules of Race pdf
Failure of Justice pdf
The Dedicated Ex-Prisoner& pdf
First the Jews pdf
Giovanni& pdf
The End of the Myth pdf
Rad Girls Can pdf
BEHIND AND BEYOND THE BADGE - Volume II pdf
The Dandelion Insurrection - love and revolution - pdf
You Can& pdf
Uncle Tom& pdf
TOXIC RAGE pdf
INCONVENIENCE GONE pdf
Tags: 1595586431 pdf,The New Jim Crow pdf,Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness pdf,Michelle Alexander, Cornel West,The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,The New Press,1595586431,Criminology,African American men - Social conditions,African American prisoners - United States,African American prisoners;United States.,Criminal justice, Administration of - United States,Criminal justice, Administration of;United States.,Discrimination in criminal justice administration - United States.,Race discrimination - United States,Race discrimination;United States.,United States - Race relations,Nonfiction,African American,African American prisoners,BLACKS IN THE U.S.,Crime & criminology,Criminal justice, Administration of,Discrimination & Racism,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General,GENERAL,General Adult,LAW / Criminal Law / Sentencing,Non-Fiction,PENOLOGY,POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights,REFERENCE / General,Race discrimination,SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology,SOCIAL SCIENCE / Penology,Social Science,Social Science/Discrimination & Racism,Social Science/Ethnic Studies - African American Studies,Sociology,United States,United States - Race relations,Discrimination & Racism,Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - General,LAW / Criminal Law / Sentencing,POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights,REFERENCE / General,SOCIAL SCIENCE / Criminology,SOCIAL SCIENCE / Penology,Social Science/Discrimination & Racism,Social Science/Ethnic Studies - African American Studies,African American prisoners,Criminal justice, Administration of,Race discrimination,United States,Blacks In The U.S.,Penology,Social Science,Sociology,Crime & criminology
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.