Morning Reads: Buffett Buys Wind Power; Little Upward Mobility in the South
Happy Friday morning! Your weekend is fast approaching. Here are some of the stories we’re reading as the media start to slow for the holidays…Love wins –> New Mexico becomes the 17th state to allow gay people to marry. Chris Geidner has the details at Buzzfeed.Unraveling –> Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima report for the WaPo that the government’s various defenses of NSA surveillance are falling a
Michelle Alexander: Locked Out of the American Dream
After civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander published her book The New Jim Crow in 2010 on our dehumanizing system of incarceration, she ignited a national conversation about justice in America and sparked a movement. In her book, Alexander explores how the war on drugs, “get-tough” sentencing policies and racism has created a caste system similar to that of our segregationist past.Since then, Al
Susan Burton: A New Way of Life
Bill Moyers shares an excerpt from a film by Tessa Blake and Emma Hewitt about the life of Susan Burton, a former California inmate who started A New Way of Life, an organization devoted to helping formerly-incarcerated women rebuild their lives. Burton became addicted to drugs after her 5-year-old son died in an accident, and served six prison sentences for drug-related felonies. Burton’s story i
Full Show: Incarceration Nation
America’s prison population has exploded from 300,000 to more than two million today due to harsh sentencing policies and the 40-year-old war on drugs. This week, Bill speaks to civil rights lawyer and legal scholar Michelle Alexander about why we need to end our system of mass incarceration.The program also includes an excerpt from the film Susan, by Tessa Blake and Emma Hewitt. It tells the stor
Book Excerpt: Understanding the New Jim Crow
The following is an excerpt from Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorblindnessJarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy. Cotton’s family tree tells the story of several generations of black men who were born in the Unit
Facts and Figures on Incarceration in America
Over the last four decades, America’s prison population has increased dramatically. This tremendous growth disproportionately affects minorities, and has been exacerbated by the war on drugs. Mass incarceration has become a form of legalized discrimination — what activist and lawyer Michelle Alexander calls the “new Jim Crow” — that makes it more difficult for millions to participate in basic aspe
