Racism and Segregation in America Today
I recently read Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. It takes head-on the “elephant in the room” concerning race in America. I feel it is a must read for anyone interested in equality and social justice.
According to Alexander, more black men are behind bars or under the watch of the criminal justice system in the US than there were enslaved in 1850…and more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. She constructs a formidable argument that the “war on drugs,” declared in 1982, had every intention of creating a new form of discrimination largely against black men.
Alexander’s book establishes that the war on drugs is truly meant to reinstate legalized discrimination that marked this country’s history during slavery and Jim Crow. The outcome and intention of the war on drugs has been and continues to be the increased policing of black communities which leads to significantly more arrests of African Americans than any other group in society. And if an African American is branded a felon, their rights return to the Jim Crow South.
Do more African-Americans go to jail more often because they commit more crimes? People of all races, use
City Paper
Thomas Knudsen, the man who was temporarily put in charge of Philadelphia schools in January, was running late to last Monday’s press conference.
He had been delivering the same presentation all day, and doomsday rumors had already leaked: The plan he was about to lay out would dismantle the central office and parcel out school management, at least in part, to private companies.
Knudsen, paid $150,000 to hold the newly created post of Chief Recovery Officer through June, made a point of shaking the hand of every single reporter in the room before beginning his presentation. “Philadelphia public schools is not the school district,” he announced, laying out the five-year plan before the School Reform Commission (SRC). “There’s a redefinition, and we’ll get to that later.”
He got to it, using terms like “portfolios,” “modernization,” “right-sizing,” “entrepreneurialism” and “competition.” I
According to Alexander, more black men are behind bars or under the watch of the criminal justice system in the US than there were enslaved in 1850…and more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. She constructs a formidable argument that the “war on drugs,” declared in 1982, had every intention of creating a new form of discrimination largely against black men.
Alexander’s book establishes that the war on drugs is truly meant to reinstate legalized discrimination that marked this country’s history during slavery and Jim Crow. The outcome and intention of the war on drugs has been and continues to be the increased policing of black communities which leads to significantly more arrests of African Americans than any other group in society. And if an African American is branded a felon, their rights return to the Jim Crow South.
Do more African-Americans go to jail more often because they commit more crimes? People of all races, use
Who’s Killing Philly Public Schools?
Underfunded. Overburdened. About to be sold for scrap.
Daniel DenvirCity Paper
Evan M. Lopez and Neal Santos
He had been delivering the same presentation all day, and doomsday rumors had already leaked: The plan he was about to lay out would dismantle the central office and parcel out school management, at least in part, to private companies.
Knudsen, paid $150,000 to hold the newly created post of Chief Recovery Officer through June, made a point of shaking the hand of every single reporter in the room before beginning his presentation. “Philadelphia public schools is not the school district,” he announced, laying out the five-year plan before the School Reform Commission (SRC). “There’s a redefinition, and we’ll get to that later.”
He got to it, using terms like “portfolios,” “modernization,” “right-sizing,” “entrepreneurialism” and “competition.” I
