Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow
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Systemic Classism, Systemic Racism: Are Social and Racial Justice Achievable in the United States?
Systemic Classism, Systemic Racism: Are Social and Racial Justice Achievable in the United States? THOMAS KLEVEN† I. INTRODUCTION The thesis of this article is that the United States is systemically a highly classist and racist society, that classism and racism are interrelated and overlapping phenomena, and that the achievement of a non- classist/non-racist society requires a mass movement of working-class people of all ethnicities for social and racial justice for all. By systemic classism/racism I mean that the political and economic institutions of the society are structured and operate to systematically disadvantage working-class people in general, and ethnic minorities in particular, and to systematically advantage a relatively small and largely white upper elite class, and a rather substantial and predominantly white upper middle class. By systemic advantage/disadvantage I mean that the opportunities to succeed in life are unequally distributed along class and racial lines, and that society’s institutions produce and perpetuate this class/race hierarchy. The discussion of race focuses primarily on African Americans and Hispanics, both of whom have been systematically disadvantaged on account of ethnicity.1 As the society’s largest disadvantaged minorities, † Professor of Law, Thurgood Marshall School of Law, Texas Southern University. I would like to thank my colleagues who attended and made helpful comments on an earlier draft of the article presented at a Faculty Quodlibet at the law school in November, 2007. I would especially like to thank Asmara Tekle-Johnson for suggestions on how better to organize the article, and Jon Levy for pointing out errors in and suggesting sources for the historical parts of the article. -
Michelle Alexander Revisioning Justice
Michelle Alexander: “The New Jim Crow.” April 18, 2015. Re-Visioning Justice. - open hearts and minds to think about what we can do to help end the system of mass incarceration - caste system - radical title; how can you say that after electing our first black president? o Wanted to challenge people o Imagine people to understand that we are not yet beyond our system of creating massive social and prison control o 300,000 to over 2 million inmates o most punitive nation in the world o unprecedented in world history o not simply a function of crime rates o crime is not the control; reality is much more disturbing and complex o even in age of “color-blindness,” we have managed to re-create a caste system o if you are born into a p0or community of color, you are born into a system that is under control ▪ your parents most likely have a criminal record ▪ legal discrimination for rest of lives: employment, housing, education, public benefits ▪ targeted by police • no matter what you’re doing • eventually, you will be caught for something • because you’re human, and you make mistakes – like all young people do • once arrested, swept into system from which real escape is only a dim hope • denied meaningful legal representation • threatened with harsh, mandatory, minimum sentences o yes, I’ll just take the plea. o Saddled with record where you are denied basic civil and human rights o Check felony box ▪ Housing ▪ Financial aid ▪ employment o you are trapped; not for a little while; for life - most people return to prison in matter of months/years -
ABSTRACT Arab American Racialization and Its Effect
ABSTRACT Arab American Racialization and its Effect oniAmerican Islamophobiaa in the United States Catherine Haseman Director: Dr. Lisa Lacy, Ph.D. Over the past few years, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab rhetoric and discrimination has surged. Prejudice against Arabs and Muslims has moved from the fringes of American society to the mainstream. The American Islamophobic discourse is so deeply rooted in U.S. history, culture, and society that we often misunderstand its origins as well as its manifestations. This paper proposes a critical dialogue about how to understand one contested concept (Islamophobia) by using another contested one (racialization). This paper seeks to understand if--and if so, to what extent--racialization is central to understanding America’s pernicious brand of Islamophobia. In addition to reviewing the historical connection between racialization and Islamophobia, this paper analyzes the results of a survey of Texans’ views of Islam and Muslims. The survey results are used to understand how racialized conceptions of Arab Muslims correspond with Islamophobic tropes. APPROVED BY DIRECTOR OF HONORS THESIS: ____________________________________________ Dr. Lisa Lacy, Department of History APPROVED BY THE HONORS PROGRAM: __________________________________________________ Dr. Elizabeth Corey, Director DATE: _________________________________ ARAB AMERICAN RACIALIZATION AND ITS EFFECTS ON AMERICAN ISLAMOPHOBIA A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Baylor University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Program -
Putting Structuralism Back Into Structural Inequality Anders Walker Saint Louis University School of Law
Saint Louis University School of Law Scholarship Commons All Faculty Scholarship 2019 Freedom and Prison: Putting Structuralism Back into Structural Inequality Anders Walker Saint Louis University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.slu.edu/faculty Part of the Civil Rights and Discrimination Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, and the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons Recommended Citation Walker, Anders, Freedom and Prison: Putting Structuralism Back into Structural Inequality (January 4, 2019). University of Louisville Law Review, Vol. 49, No. 267, 2019. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of Scholarship Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. FREEDOM AND PRISON: PUTTING STRUCTURALISM BACK INTO STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY Anders Walker* ABSTRACT Critics of structural racism frequently miss structuralism as a field of historical inquiry. This essay reviews the rise of structuralism as a mode of historical analysis and applies it to the mass incarceration debate in the United States, arguing that it enriches the work of prevailing scholars in the field. I. INTRODUCTION Structuralism has become a prominent frame for discussions of race and inequality in the United States, part of a larger trend that began in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidential victory in 2008. This victory was a moment -
Michelle Alexander's Operational Whitewash the New Jim Crow Reviewed
Radicalcritique.org Int’J of Radical Critique 1:1 (2012) Black Out: Michelle Alexander's Operational Whitewash The New Jim Crow Reviewed Osel, Joseph, D. Alumnus, Seattle University, Graduate Dept. of Psychology The Evergreen State College, Dept. of Society, Politics, Behavior & Change ______________________________________________________________________________ The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander, The New Press, 1st edition: January 5, 2010; Paperback 2012; IBSN-10: 1595581030; ISBN-13: 978-1595581037 Michelle Alexander's new book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is strange and omnipresent, coming to us under the often co-opted banner of the noble cause. I first stumbled onto Alexander's book by accident, finding a mention of it somewhere and following up to satisfy my own curiosity. After my initial discovery I found the likable, knowledgeable and well-meaning Alexander speaking about her book on various radio and television programs, finding most of her stand-alone statements accurate, important and worthy of discussion. Upon finishing her book I recently attended a rally in Seattle in support of the family of Trayvon Martin where references to "The New Jim Crow" were abundant, the signs and chants of the "No New Jim Crow Coalition" ringing throughout the event -- the strangely backward chant of "no peace, no justice" adopted quickly by the crowd. When visiting the home of a white hippy friend who lives in the city's gentrifying Central District a pristine copy of Alexander's book sat proudly on her living-room bookshelf. During a chance encounter with a local civil rights attorney, upon exposing myself as a sociologist, Alexander's book was recommended right on cue, "The New Jim Crow is our new Bible!" the young lawyer told me. -
Michelle Alexander Found Within Our Legal System
UNIVERSITY LECTURE SERIES FACULTY SHEET Save the Date: In this moderated question and September 26, 2019 at 4:30 p.m. answer discussion, Alexander will lead conversations on the state of race Lecture: relations in America and injustices An Evening with Michelle Alexander found within our legal system. MICHELLE ALEXANDER Civil rights lawyer, advocate and author of "The New Jim Crow" Legal Scholar Social Justice Advocate “ She is a powerful writer, a fierce advocate RACE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE for a more just world and a deep believer Alexander’s work focuses on the ways in which in open-minded, searching debate over the War on Drugs and other governmental policies have created a New Jim Crow era. As how to achieve it.” Alexander articulates in this lecture at the Union — James Bennet, New York Times editorial page editor Theological Seminary, mass incarceration rates disproportionately affect communities of color and harm these communities with long-lasting impact Michelle Alexander is a legal scholar, social justice advocate, by being branded a felon or criminal. Alexander New York Times columnist and visiting professor at Union also discusses how her view of the issue of mass Theological Seminary. Her work explores the myths surrounding incarceration changed while at the ACLU in this our criminal justice system from a racial and ethical standpoint, TEDxColumbus lecture. and offers solutions to problems stemming from these concerns. Alexander further explores the problems with “e-incarceration” in a November 2018 New York Her New York Times and Washington Post best-selling book, The Times opinion column as an extension of racial New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, was discrimination. -
Teaching Tolerance a Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center Tolerance.Org
TEACHING TOLERANCE A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER TOLERANCE.ORG WEBINAR TRANSCRIPT Teaching The New Jim Crow with Michelle Alexander JUNE CHRISTIAN Good evening and welcome to tonight’s webinar, Teaching The New Jim Crow with Mi- chelle Alexander. We’re excited to preview our new teaching guide, Teaching The New Jim Crow, with the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblind- ness, Michelle Alexander. I’d like to welcome Michelle to the webinar. MICHELLE ALEXANDER Thank you so much, June. Go ahead. JUNE CHRISTIAN Okay, before I go into the full introduction of Michelle for those of you who may not be fa- miliar with our esteemed guest this evening, please allow me to share a bit about Teaching Tolerance. We’re a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1991 to curtail the recruitment of youth into extremist hate groups. TT’s mission is to reduce prejudice, improve intergroup relationships and to help create equitable school environments. If you have not already yet signed up for our weekly newsletter, please do so at tolerance.org. We have a number of quality anti-bias resources for teachers, counselors and school adminis- trators, including lessons, a variety of publications and film kits. These resources are free of charge and can be downloaded at tolerance.org. We also encourage all K-12 teachers to sign up for our Teaching Tolerance magazine. We publish two print magazines in the fall and spring and an iPad edition in the summer. Please sign up at tolerance.org. -
Combating Habitual Hegemony: Prison Abolitionism
1 Combating Habitual Hegemony: Prison Abolitionism These uses of criminal law administration as a central means of resisting the abolition of slavery, Reconstruction, and desegregation, continue to inform criminal processes and institutions to this day by enabling forms of brutality and disregard that would be unimaginable had they originated in other, more democratic, egalitarian, and racially integrated contexts. (McLeod 2015: 1193) These continued legacies of brutality and disregard not only inform but are integral to our prison system today. In an effort to both move away from relying on respectability politics in the civil rights movement and to challenge these habitual social scripts, leading civil rights activists have proposed prison abolitionism. Prison abolitionism is not born from political naiveté or utopia. In fact, through campaigns of decarceration, decriminalization and excarceration, prison abolitionism is a necessary step in combating the reinvention and even continuance of previous systems of racial brutality, disregard, control, hegemony and oppression. In what follows I will be using “we” and “our” to recognize and acknowledge not only my participation and role in the maintenance of the current status quo but also in hopes that my audience will similarly acknowledge their active part in this maintenance. The words, “we” and “our,” are historically and contemporarily used in ways that erase and make invisible the distinct realities of certain peoples and groups. In an effort to address this legacy, I want to acknowledge their purpose and use in my work. I must also acknowledge that there are many who are working to voice and demonstrate resistance and dissent in an effort to alter these current schemes. -
CTS Selma Conference Partner Chicago Sunday Evening Club Hosts Keynote Speaker Michelle Alexander in Provocative Conversation on “Things Not Seen” Program
Contact: Susan Cusick, Director of Communications Phone: 773.896.2435 Email: [email protected] CTS Selma Conference Partner Chicago Sunday Evening Club Hosts Keynote Speaker Michelle Alexander in Provocative Conversation on “Things Not Seen” Program CHICAGO, April 20, 2015 – Award winning author Michelle Alexander was featured on the Chicago Sunday Evening Club (CSEC) radio program “Things Not Seen: Conversations about Culture and Faith,” in anticipation of her plenary address at “Selma at 50: Still Marching,” Chicago Theological Seminary’s spring 2015 Conference. CSEC President and CEO David Dault interviewed Ms. Alexander for the program. “Michelle Alexander is a wonderful guest, and we covered a lot of ground in the conversation, including theological angles that she doesn’t normally get into,” Dault said. Their conversation explored Alexander’s argument, put forth in her 2010 book The New Jim Crow, that mass incarceration in America has been used as a tool to create a permanent, disenfranchised underclass, consisting primarily of persons of color. Listen to the complete interview at the Things Not Seen website (http://www.thingsnotseenradio.com). Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar, will address conference participants on Saturday, April 25 in a town hall style discussion. Onsite audience members and participants following CTS social media channels can interact with Alexander on topics exploring the intersection of racial justice, civil rights, and faith. Participants may offer questions and commentary via social media by following the hashtag #CTSSelma and “liking” CTS’s Facebook page (https:// www.facebook.com/CTSChicago?fref=ts). “Selma at 50: Still Marching” is a two-day conference taking place on the CTS campus Friday, April 24th and Saturday, April 25th that will encourage attendees to examine the systemic causes of social issues, including the prison industrial complex and militarize policing, violence, racism, income inequality, and poverty to create actionable strategies leading to change. -
Jim Crow Laws. in the Streets, Resistance Turned Violent
TEACHING TEACHING The New Jim Crow TOLERANCE LESSON 4 A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER TOLERANCE.ORG Jim Crow as a Form of Racialized Social Control THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander CHAPTER 1 The Rebirth of Caste The Birth of Jim Crow The backlash against the gains of African Americans in the Reconstruction Era was swift and severe. As African Americans obtained political power and began the long march to- ward greater social and economic equality, whites reacted with panic and outrage. South- ern conservatives vowed to reverse Reconstruction …. Their campaign to “re- deem” the South was reinforced by a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, which fought a BOOK terrorist campaign against Reconstruction governments and local leaders, EXCERPT complete with bombings, lynchings, and mob violence. The terrorist campaign proved highly successful. “Redemption” resulted in the withdrawal of federal troops from the South and the effective aban- donment of African Americans and all those who had fought for or supported an egalitarian racial order. The federal government no longer made any effort to enforce federal civil rights legislation … . Once again, vagrancy laws and other laws defining activities such as “mischief ” and “insult- ing gestures” as crimes were enforced vigorously against blacks. The aggressive enforce- ment of these criminal offenses opened up an enormous market for convict leasing, in Abridged excerpt which prisoners were contracted out as laborers to the highest private bidder. from The New Jim Crow: Mass Incar- Convicts had no meaningful legal rights at this time and no effective redress. They were ceration in the Age understood, quite literally, to be slaves of the state. -
Slavery As a Form of Racialized Social Control
TEACHING TEACHING The New Jim Crow TOLERANCE LESSON 3 A PROJECT OF THE SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER TOLERANCE.ORG Slavery as a Form of Racialized Social Control THE NEW JIM CROW by Michelle Alexander CHAPTER 1 The Rebirth of Caste The Birth of Slavery The concept of race is a relatively recent development. Only in the past few centuries, ow- ing largely to European imperialism, have the world’s people been classified along racial lines.1 Here, in America, the idea of race emerged as a means of reconciling chattel slavery— as well as the extermination of American Indians—with the ideals of freedom preached by whites in the new colonies. BOOK In the early colonial period, when settlements remained relatively small, EXCERPT indentured servitude was the dominant means of securing cheap labor. Under this system, whites and blacks struggled to survive against a com- mon enemy, what historian Lerone Bennett Jr. describes as “the big planter apparatus and a social system that legalized terror against black and white bonds-men.”2 Initially, blacks brought to this country were not all enslaved; many were treated as indentured servants. As plantation farming expanded, particularly tobacco and cotton farming, demand increased greatly for both labor and land. The demand for land was met by invading and conquering larger and larger swaths of terri- tory [held by American Indians]. Abridged excerpt from The New Jim The growing demand for labor on plantations was met through slavery. American Indians Crow: Mass Incar- were considered unsuitable as slaves, largely because native tribes were clearly in a posi- ceration in the Age tion to fight back. -
To What Extent Is the Death Penalty a Tool of Racial Terror in America, and How Can We Fix It?
Grand Valley State University ScholarWorks@GVSU Honors Projects Undergraduate Research and Creative Practice 4-2021 To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it? Gabrielle Boileau Grand Valley State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/honorsprojects Part of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Commons, Law and Race Commons, and the Race and Ethnicity Commons ScholarWorks Citation Boileau, Gabrielle, "To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it?" (2021). Honors Projects. 834. https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/honorsprojects/834 This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Research and Creative Practice at ScholarWorks@GVSU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@GVSU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it? Gabrielle Boileau Grand Valley State University April 2021 Introduction: In this paper, we seek to answer the question: To what extent is the death penalty a tool of racial terror in America, and how can we fix it? America has long been plagued by the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. In the reconstruction era, when slavery was no longer legal, angry white citizens would simply round up African-Americans and lynch them if they felt they had done something “wrong”. However, in the modern era, such blatant displays of racism are illegal, and the racist views of society are subverted into the court system.