The New Jim Crow

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