By Michelle Alexander
This book is written by an attorney as though she is
delivering closing argument. Michelle
Alexander is a black civil rights attorney.
Her case: Black People-v-The
Criminal Justice System. At issue is the
war on drugs. Her modus operandi, connects the dots,
events chronologically near and far, with statistical argument to demonstrate
unconscious racial discrimination of black people. Her central argument is racism defined
uniquely by her to make her case. Her definition
is that white privileged males will orchestrate every legal measure to keep the
black person in his box. She starts with
slavery and then draws the string of argument through the Civil War, the Jim
Crow Laws, through the Civil Rights Movement, to the War on Drugs. In every key event through history she cites
the opposing view whereby the argument, attempts to expose a common strategy of
the ‘privileged white man’. That
strategy she alleges exists in all levels of government, of which she extends
to all white society as racist. In the
end on page 255 she advocates an all out war; pitting black, brown, yellow,
women, any minority against the white man.
That she advocates this dichotomy and considering that Barak Obama endorses it may
explain some of the racial divide brought to violent endings over the
past eight years.
Once again I find a book advocating an ‘Us-v-Them’ situation
advocating for the “Us” and taking absolutely no responsibility for where the
‘Us” contributed to the problem. You can
expect this as it was written by a lawyer trained to argue for things in
anything but an objective way.
Unfortunately in her argument there are many atrocities inflicted upon
the black man in the prosecution of the War on Drugs, of which every President
from Nixon to Obama endorses, that only leave the reader angry. In the course of this one sided story, there
exists no viable solution. All this book
does is agitates one side and alienates the other side. An inspiring investigative reporter could be
inspired to write to the jury of the American people the opposing argument with
an effort to unite people rather than divide people.
Chapter one is basically an introduction chapter looking to
frame the subject. The author executes
on the classic stats strategy by flooding the reader with stats. So many stats that the average reader won’t
fact check and presume she is accurate. Many
stats are marginally related to the points she makes. Some stats have no relevance. Her aim is to statistically form a foundation
of racism, and the agenda of the ‘white privileged male. ‘If the reader takes
the bait, the he/she is easily led through 200 more pages of story to conclude;
yep we need to wage that war.
Chapter two, The Lockdown is a chronology of the mindset of
our legislative branch of government from the founding fathers to current day. A continuous theme is that whenever there is
opposing argument in favor of civil liberty decisions, those dissenting
positions are the seeds to a rebirth of the problem that was decided and voted
on. Jim Crow after the Civil War, in her
mind extends right up to the Civil Rights movement which is contrary to Wiki. She advocates that the seeds from slavery
laws find rebirth to refortify a sense of a caste for black people. This is classic lawyer strategy to argue a
case, they are taught this in law school.
The dissenting view is written to fight another day. The flaw in her strategy is that the
dissenting view is not direct extracted from any formal legal case, but rather
her own version of what the dissenting views were. The only person to challenge this is the
reader, and I highly recommend the reader do so. In my paperback version, I speculate that
every third page is highlighted in yellow with a margin note challenging something
said by the author in to question.
Chapter three called The Color of Justice there is a
chronology of the criminal justice system from round up to sentencing and rectification. This chapter brings some ugly truths about
the War on Drugs. The war on drugs starts with the roundup, including random
searches, SWAT intrusions, and property seizure to fund the war. The author writes of stiff sentencing biased
toward blacks, and the three strike rule, where the third misdemeanor means a
long period of jail time. Contrarily wars
on drugs in countries like Netherlands and Portugal find this whole strategy
ineffective. So rather than simply play
the race card and sing the song of poor black me, Michele missed the
opportunity to propose a real solution, a solution this does not pit
‘Us-v-Them” After all no one, black or
white should have to deal with stigma of
a felony for social crimes.
Chapter four, The Cruel Hand she provides argument for the
closing of the doors by the courts. In
many cases she cites the Supreme Court where rulings are based on technical
merit of law. Michele Alexander finds not coincident but purposeful
agenda that sweeps blacks into prison. She
cites targeting by police that is entangled with the war on crime, any crime. What she misses out on is this war is
producing safe neighborhoods because the criminals are moving to other
locations. Unconscious Racism is one of
her tenants. She is banking she has made
a convincing argument in previous chapters.
If she hasn’t then this colored blind chapter looses steam. It is unfortunate because had she remained
objective in her argument, there are many points that stand for a course
correction. She provides a convincing
argument on page 124 for the root cause, being social economic plight of black
people. But as a lawyer she sees her
fight solely in the legal system. What can
blacks do to help themselves? She makes
convincing argument in some places and then contradicting argument elsewhere,
where in the end she concedes defeat in her fight against the criminal justice
system.
Chapter five, The New Jim Crow is about the color of justice
and again plays the race card in the targeting of black people in the war on
drugs. She sets up the reader with
horrible stories about individuals and then uses selective stats to make the
stories larger than life. If you took
the bait earlier on, you are her new soldier in the Black Lives Matter
Movement. But then she goes on to cite
Black people including Obama who are also blind to the targeting of black
people; which totally rebukes her thesis on white privilege racism. In the end there exists some merit in her
argument. However she misses opportunity
to close the deal. Where she is strong
in stats in some places, she misses key stats that hurt her case
Chapter six the Fire This Time speaks to the experience felons’
experience, which in my other reading exists in all races, not just black. The denial of rights once having served time
is indeed a problem. However, she spends
too much time on the exclusion factor and NO time on efforts to recover. There are books and NPO’s dedicated to this
cause, yet nothing along this line from Michele Alexander. She even speaks to
family members that won’t take their family felon in for risk of eviction. One could conclude that perhaps they are the
best judge of their family member. She
misses the opportunity to expound on NPOs efforts to help felons on their
feet.
Half way through the book I highlighted a paragraph and
wrote a margin note.
“None
of this is to suggest that those who break the law bear no responsibility for
their conduct or exist merely as “products of their environment.” To overcome seemingly impossible odds – would
be to deny an essential element of their humanity. We as human beings, are not simply organism
or animals responding to stimuli. We
have a higher self, a capacity for transcendence.”
My margin note: Good theme – now
re-write your book.
In my conclusion I suggest two things. First when you make a social justice issue
about us and them, justice is near impossible to achieve. Second is the war on drugs has been and
continues to be a failure that spans all people. While
black people have carried the lion’s
share of the tragedies of the war, Michelle Alexander’s thesis is way
off the
mark, short sighted and will never bring the social justice entitled to
ALL
people. May I suggest watching this movie and rethinking the thinly
veiled theme of this book. Breaking -Taboo- Truth About the War on
Drugs.
https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Taboo-Truth-About-Drugs/dp/B014Y1NSN6
