May 16 2012
Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow – Mass Incarceration in an Age of Color-Blindness
Governor Jerry Brown on Monday called for an additional $8 billion in spending cuts in California within his revised budget plan for the 2012-2013 fiscal year. The revision is his attempt to quell California’s current $16 billion budget deficit. Brown’s proposed plan would increase spending for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation by $807 million, pushing the total CDCR budget to a whopping $8.889 billion. Meanwhile Governor Brown has reduced In-Home Supportive Services workers pay by 7% and cut an additional $400 million from The California Medical Assistance Program. Critics of Brown’s proposal argue that expanding the state’s prison system is a step in the wrong direction for California – a state which houses the most prisoners in solitary confinement than any other state, country or nation on earth.
In her groundbreaking book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, civil rights lawyer, advocate, legal scholar, and author, Michelle Alexander, argues that the racial oppression of the Jim Crow era has not been lost to a more racially enlightened age. Featuring an introduction by Cornel West, the new paperback edition of Alexander’s book has sold over 175,000 copies and spent six weeks on the New York Times paperback, nonfiction, best-seller list since its release this January. In The New Jim Crow, Alexander explores the idea that the institutional racism of an earlier era exemplified by poll taxes and housing discrimination is exercised today as the more socially acceptable practice of mass incarceration of black Americans, especially black men. Alexander further makes a compelling case that mass incarceration undermines the well-being of entire communities and weakens the very foundation of American democracy.
In a speech given just days ago, on May 10th 2012 at the New Philadelphia AME church in Rancho Dominguez, Southern California, Michelle Alexander laid out her thesis, starting with how it took her many years to understand the true extent of the crisis of mass incarceration.
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Michelle Alexander speech – DVD – $75
Michelle Alexander speech – CD – $50
The New Jim Crow – new paperback – $100
Michelle Alexander pack (all of the above) – $180
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As a middle class white teacher working in an African-American neighborhood, I was initially shocked at the deplorable “education” which these students were receiving. Now a veteran, I am thoroughly convinced that the school-to-prison pipeline is the new jim crow. I would like to share some information about the innumerable and abyssmal conditions and practices which continue to oppress children of color in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Please do not publish my name or email, as I have suffered much retaliation for speaking out against these injustices as well as the corrupt and illegal practices committed by district administration and officials.