In her groundbreaking book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” Alexander contends that by targeting Black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control — relegating millions to a permanent second-class status — even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. The following concepts are taken from her book:
‘Criminal’ Has Replaced ‘Ni**er’ as a Slur for Black Men
Rather than overtly talk about, and exclude anyone on the basis of race (a socially unacceptable practice nowadays), bigots, and those complicit with bigotry, have learned to use the criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then practice all of the old techniques of social control that were supposedly left behind.
The New Caste System Can Even Thrive Without Prison Walls
The new caste system locks people behind actual bars in actual prisons and also behind virtual bars and virtual walls. Rules, policies, customs control those labeled “criminals” – both in and out of prison. The new caste system exists “invisibly” within the maze of rationalizations the elite power structure developed for its existence. It doesn’t depend on overt bigotry or racial hostility to thrive. It needs only racial indifference.
The U.S. Used the Cover of ‘The War on Drugs’ to Incarcerate a Generation of Black Men
The War on Drugs began at a time when illegal drug use was on the decline. During this same time period, however, a war was declared, causing arrests and convictions for drug offenses to skyrocket, especially among people of color. The impact of the drug war has been astounding: In less than 30 years, the U.S. penal population exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million, with drug convictions accounting for the majority of the increase. The United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities. The U.S. imprisons a larger percentage of its Black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.
The U.S. Uses the Penal System as a Means of Social Control
The stark and sobering reality is that, for reasons largely unrelated to actual crime trends, the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history. And while the size of the system alone might suggest that it would touch the lives of most Americans, the primary targets of its control can be defined largely by race. One in three young African-American men will serve time in prison if current trends continue, and in some cities more than half of all young adult Black men are currently under correctional control — in prison or jail, on probation or parole. Yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as a criminal justice issue as opposed to a racial justice or civil rights issue (or crisis).
Through Incarceration, a Huge Number of African-Americans Can Never Advance in Our Society
What is key to America’s understanding of class is the persistent belief — despite all evidence to the contrary — that anyone, with the proper discipline and drive, can move from a lower class to a higher class. We recognize that mobility may be difficult, but the key to our collective self-image is the assumption that mobility is always possible, so failure to move up reflects on one’s character — and the failure of a race or ethnic group to move up reflects very poorly on the group as a whole. But a huge percentage of African-Americans are not free to move up at all because they are barred by law from doing so. The current system of control permanently locks a huge percentage of the African-American community out of the mainstream society and economy. Although this new system of racialized social control purports to be colorblind, it creates and maintains racial hierarchy much as earlier systems of control did, like Jim Crow and slavery.
The Nation’s Power Brokers Use Racism to Disguise Their Scheme
Since the nation’s founding, African-Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn in new forms, tailored to the needs and constraints of the time. The most ardent proponents of racial hierarchy have consistently succeeded in implementing new racial caste systems by triggering a collapse of resistance across the political spectrum. This feat has been achieved largely by appealing to the racism and vulnerability of lower-class whites, a group of people who are understandably eager to ensure that they never find themselves trapped at the bottom of the American hierarchy.
Ronald Reagan Started It, But Bill Clinton Took It to New Levels
In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton vowed that he would never permit any Republican to be perceived as tougher on crime than he was. Once elected, Clinton endorsed the idea of a federal “three strikes and you’re out” law, which he advocated in his 1994 State of the Union address to enthusiastic applause on both sides of the aisle. The $30 billion crime bill sent to President Clinton in August 1994 was hailed as a victory for the Democrats, who “were able to wrest the crime issue from the Republicans and make it their own.” The bill created dozens of new federal capital crimes, mandated life sentences for some three-time offenders and authorized more than $16 billion for state prison grants and expansion of state and local police forces. Far from resisting the emergence of the new caste system, Clinton escalated the drug war beyond what conservatives had imagined possible a decade earlier. As the Justice Policy Institute observed, “the Clinton Administration’s ‘tough on crime’ policies resulted in the largest increases in federal and state prison inmates of any president in American history.”
The Feds Paid Police Departments to Increase Drug Arrests, Thus Helping to Destroy Black Communities
The transformation from “community policing” to “military policing” began in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan persuaded Congress to pass the Military Cooperation with Law Enforcement Act, which encouraged the military to give local, state and federal police access to military bases, intelligence, research, weaponry and other equipment for drug interdiction. In the years that followed, Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton enthusiastically embraced the drug war and increased the transfer of military equipment, technology and training to local law enforcement, contingent, of course, on the willingness of agencies to prioritize drug-law enforcement and concentrate resources on arrests for illegal drugs. Drug arrests skyrocketed, as SWAT teams swept through urban housing projects, highway patrol agencies organized drug interdiction units on the freeways, and stop-and-frisk programs were set loose on the streets. Generally, the financial incentives offered to local law enforcement to pump up their drug arrests have not been well-publicized, leading the average person to conclude reasonably (but mistakenly) that when their local police departments report that drug arrests have doubled or tripled in a short period of time, the arrests reflect a surge in illegal drug activity, rather than an infusion of money and an intensified enforcement effort.
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