The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

Review by Maya Santhanam, 10

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Put yourself in the shoes of Clifford Runoalds, another African American victim of “a well-designed system of racialized social control.” After the shocking death of your 18-month-old daughter, you return home for her memorial service. Police barge in and put you in handcuffs. You plead with authorities, begging to see your daughter's body one last time before she is buried, and you are denied. The District Attorney wants you to admit to witnessing a drug crime. The day after you refuse to testify, you are indicted on felony drug charges, despite your innocence. You are given a month-long sentence, even though you weren’t the witness, drug dealer, or powerful DA perhaps surprisingly guilty of witness tampering. After your release, you subsequently lose your car, apartment, job, and furniture. This is the actual War on Drugs. This is not an isolated incident that is random or accidental. African Americans are subjected to everyday tactics and practices that would result in outrage if committed in middle-class white neighborhoods. The mass criminalization of POC, especially African American men, is as profound as the Jim Crow laws: Despite seeming to have died off in the 20th century, the laws merely took on a different form. Michele Alexander effectively reviews the history of this country’s systemized racial control, the structure of this system with a large emphasis on the War on Drugs in its entirety, the role of race in the criminal justice system, and several other alarming issues within our society in this riveting and eye-opening must-read, The New Jim Crow.