'The New Jim Crow'
Dear Diane,
I've had a startling experience—even though "I knew it all" before. But it didn't add up until I read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.
Everything connects with everything, but the role that the incarceration of black men in America has played and continues to play seems suddenly a greater crisis than bad schools, or even poverty. If we—white Americans—were truly concerned about the "achievement gap," it's the gap in incarceration rates where we might start. No, it isn't a fact that it all starts with "pathology" or the "culture of poverty."
Alexander's rigorously researched and passionate book was hard to put down and equally hard to pick up. We (white Americans) keep inventing new ways to maintain racism in its most naked form—even as we about talk colorblindness. I think I have fallen into the trap, too, when pointing out that the white poor face many of the
I've had a startling experience—even though "I knew it all" before. But it didn't add up until I read Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow.
Everything connects with everything, but the role that the incarceration of black men in America has played and continues to play seems suddenly a greater crisis than bad schools, or even poverty. If we—white Americans—were truly concerned about the "achievement gap," it's the gap in incarceration rates where we might start. No, it isn't a fact that it all starts with "pathology" or the "culture of poverty."
Alexander's rigorously researched and passionate book was hard to put down and equally hard to pick up. We (white Americans) keep inventing new ways to maintain racism in its most naked form—even as we about talk colorblindness. I think I have fallen into the trap, too, when pointing out that the white poor face many of the
