“The New Jim Crow” (2010), by American civil rights lawyer and law professor Michelle Alexander, lays out how the fall of the old Jim Crow led to the rise of the New Jim Crow: the War on Drugs and its mass incarceration. Black men in the US are put in prison at a rate unheard of elsewhere in the world, even in totalitarian regimes, even in the US before 1970. Because it is not about fighting drugs or crime: it is about screwing up Blacks so they remain at the bottom of US society.
The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s overthrew Jim Crow laws, but it made two huge, huge mistakes:
- It left White racism itself untouched.
- It gave the White working class no stake in the new order.
Black slavery, Jim Crow and the War on Drugs are not about Black people: they are about White people, in particular the White working class. By keeping Blacks at the bottom, the White working class has a stake in the social order, a reason not to vote their class interests, a reason not to rise up against the rich. No matter now bad it gets, they can always tell themselves: “At least I’m not a nigger.”
The civil rights movement took that away from them and gave them nothing in return. That left them wide open to racist dog whistles from people like Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Clinton who promised “law and order” and getting “tough on crime”. That led to the War on Drugs, military-style policing, draconian drug laws and the consequent mass incarceration.
Going to prison is not even the worst of it: it is being branded a felon for life. You are damaged goods. Even churches and civil rights lawyers will want little to do with you, much less employers. Most professional licences are out. So is public housing for five years and food stamps for ever. Etc. You are never allowed to get a fresh start. In most cases you are back in prison within five years. You have fallen into an underclass designed by White-backlash lawmakers. Welcome to the New Jim Crow.
Even Blacks who never go to prison, or never have anyone in their family who did, are affected. Blacks are locked up at such high rates that all Blacks fall under suspicion of being possible criminals. So much so that a White felon has a better chance of getting a job than an equally qualified Black non-felon.
Even though drug laws are completely colour-blind and even though Whites and Blacks use drugs at about the same rate, Blacks are still way more likely to be stopped, to be searched, to be arrested, to be found guilty and to be sent to prison for a long time. That is because the Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove that the police or the courts are racist. So the racism of prosecutors, judges and police officers runs wild.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- American Violet – the movie version, pretty much
- mass incarceration
- Jim Crow
- colour-blind racism
- race and the White working class:
- Bacon’s Rebellion – in 1676
- Southern Strategy – since 1964
- The N-word
- The three pillars of American White supremacy
548
Abagond 
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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The black man is still under attack by these antiquated laws
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I’m not quite sure Obama himself and conscious of this stuff or what the true plight is. He grew up in Hawaii (not sure if it was the areas prone to drugs, violence and strife like Waipahu). You see him eating in cafe shop around Indonesians or whatever with Anthony Bordain. And that truely is the mistake that people make about Obama, he may be racially black but socially he’s more Asian than I may be.
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Blacks get arrested more because they smoke their weed in the street, whites smoke it inside, thus making it harder to be noticed. We should scrap all of these laws anyway, they are oppressive. Blacks should just be able to live without any laws, this will end police encounters and thus, oppression.
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Everytime I read or heard about the n-word, I always wince. Anyway, I have heard some working class white people say they’re happy they weren’t born black. They think they’re better and they know the color of their skin will give them preferential treatment not afforded to black people. You see it time and time again that black folks will get the short end of the stick.
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Remove the Black man, and you weaken his whole family
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It’s possible that the (MLK-school) civil rights movement was wrong-headed in what it wanted as a priority: integration. The implicit assumption was that if black people gained access to the same institutions as white people they’d have the same opportunities. What happened, to a large extent, was that the institutions morphed to maintain white supremacy even when they had to accomodate black people being physically present. Colorbind racism could be seen as grassroots resistance to government policy that was unpopular with the masses. They revolted by pretending to follow the letter of the law while doing their best to frustrate the spirit.
Of course, overthrowing Jim Crow laws were a good thing but MLK was probably a bit idealistic. Charismatic personalities often are. He had a vision for a post-racial America and he seemed to believe that integration would usher it in. The problem is that without having changed hearts, you’d just be jumping into the lion’s den. Yet, I don’t believe oppressed people can change the hearts of their oppressors. It’s also difficult to imagine selling a loss of privilege to whites as something beneficial. Since those were the difficult preconditions, according to the article, for the movement of the 50s and 60s to have been a complete success probably it wasn’t wise to have focused so heavily on integration.
A meeting of the minds of the MLK and Malcom X schools of thought would probably have been best. Simply put, if you can’t depend on the state to be fair to you then you have to create institutions for you own survival as occurred during segregation. Integration destroyed those before a racially just America had become a reality.
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@ Origin
I agree with a lot of what you said. However, I’ve also read that before his assassination, MLK was reaching out to poor and lower-class whites, starting the beginnings of a interracial movement that would have fought to alleviate poverty, ensure a living wage, etc. If this is true, perhaps one reason MLK was moving in this direction was because he realized exactly what you pointed out: that he needed to directly engage poor and working-class whites if integration was to be effective, to convince them that they weren’t losing any real privileges that mattered, and to include them in a movement to improve the lives of everyone on the bottom rungs. It may have been less that he was naively optimistic and more that his life was cut short before he could accomplish the next stage.
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@Solitaire
Thanks, I didn’t know that. It would’ve been interesting if he’d lived long enough for such a strategy to bear fruit (or not). He would have been even more dangerous to the establishment if he’d been able to lead an underclass that cut across racial lines. I suspect that would have been very difficult to achieve, though, while ensuring that black people’s concerns remained in focus.
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@ Origin
“He would have been even more dangerous to the establishment if he’d been able to lead an underclass that cut across racial lines.”
There are people who believe that’s exactly why he was killed when he was.
If he had succeeded (and you’re correct that it was a big “if”), the movement would have been an enormous threat to the powers-that-be.
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I highly recommend reading this book.
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@thefansforum
“Remove the Black man, and you weaken his whole family”
I would add “and community” to your comment. Pushing huge numbers of Black men (and some women) into a huge, permanent underclass has really destabilized the Black community…and that was one intent of the laws that are a part of the New Jim Crow.
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In 2011, Michelle Alexander was interviewed on a public radio show called Media Matters on WILL-AM in Urbana-Champaign, IL. Professor Alexander not only discusses her book but also takes questions from callers. The nearly one hour audio file can be found here:
http://will.illinois.edu/mediamatters/program/mediamatters-july-17th-2011
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@Origin
I think you made the best case in point of how American Society could have been turned around rapidly. The White Working Class forming some type of bond away from the elite class whilst immune from the rhetoric of Republicans.
The course of society would have changed significantly.
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You a hundred percent right but everybody does not realize that ideal
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Well, no one should cross any racial lines to be successful.
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Fred Hampton was making similar overtures toward poor whites before he was gunned down…
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I know plenty of White people and they smoke weed inside, outside and upside down. They never, ever have any problems with police, nor do they even fear being caught. Take this as you will, it is my own observation only.
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^^^^^
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ3dk6KAvQM)
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“Take this as you will, it is my own observation only.”
.
Not at all. I think most *honest* people who aren’t blind can see this blatant disparity.
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking09/Whites_Smoke_Pot.html
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@leigh204
That is a ridiculous statement. Rich white folks hate poor whites and mock them, they favor minorities, especially LGBT, over poor whites. The highest suicide rate in the country is from poorer white guys, the rich whites don’t care and spend no resources on them. If they new they were “favored” by rich whites then why would they kill themselves. Kevin Williamson of the National Review even told working class whites that they should die and deserve too. So how do they know they are favored? You need to update your rhetoric a bit, the 1800s are over.
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re: rick’s comment
Not sure if you understood what everyone is trying to say.
It’s not a matter of them knowing that they are favored. It’s a matter of them not knowing that they aren’t. Most of them would have never read any article in the National Review. But watching TV/movies, seeing blacks, and in some places Latinos arrested or roughed up by the police, and seeing all the propaganda messages all the time, they learn that supporting anyone who advocates for improving black lives must somehow be against their self-interests.
So, they are not favored. But they don’t realize that. And some politicians know how to raise that sentiment and hoodwink them.
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@ Solitaire
I agree: MLK was not so much naive as shot dead and then sanitized to uphold a stillborn creation.
He knew that merely overthrowing Jim Crow laws was not enough, that it needed to be underpinned by an economic transformation for poor and working class people regardless of race, something which he was working to create when he was shot dead – at age 39!!!
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@jefe
Fair enough, perhaps I misunderstood.
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The system is designed to keep AA’s from remembering who they really are because they are a powerful people. Think about it, why would you put so much energy into suppressing a people if they didn’t pose any kind of ‘perceived’ threat or truly were ‘inferior’? Does this country have laws & social practices that keep dogs down? No because there is NO perceived threat that Dogs will take over and rule the world.
The sad part is this perceived threat is just that, an illusion. A symptom passed down from an ancient memory that is no longer valid. Just look at what AA’s HAVE accomplished in SPITE of the 500 yrs of oppression, consistent biases, negative messages, destructive social engineering and disempowered neighborhoods and family structures. Over the years, all of this dysfunction is now in their DNA and is passed down from generation to generation. (see Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Joy Degruy to see how the dysfunction of slavery has changed the DNA.
Look at the media today and the larger society. Their focus is on what is ‘wrong’ with the AA community (no fathers, crime, drugs, welfare, joblessness, incarceration rates, etc.) Energetic laws of nature are being used against the community because there is no awareness of the effects of energy, thought and just how much personal power everyone really DOES have to COMPLETELY change their reality. When you focus on what you don’t want, you create more of it. When you focus on what is ‘wrong’ you perpetuate it. Create the picture of what you DO want and focus on that.
Are you disrespecting the past, the experiences and those that came before you by not bringing it up? Here is something that is empowering. Mention the issue and then spend the rest of the time creating solutions for this issue. What is it that the individual, the family, the community can do to make a difference? Within each individual is the solution. Practice strengthening that. When you have a watershed number of people focused on the solution, energy does shift and the DNA can begin to heal itself so that the dysfunction isn’t passed onto the next generation. Do this as an experiment for 30 days and at the end, see how you feel on a day to day basis. Notice how your reality has changed (the situations you experience, how people respond to you etc.)
This may be difficult to even think that you can make a difference however that is exactly where they want you to be psychologically, spiritually, mentally and physically. You can choose to stay in that sandbox, or completely put yourself into another sandbox.
The good news is that it is easier said that done to accomplish the healing of the DNA, and the destructive thought and mind patterns that are so embedded and are so consistently reprogrammed into the mind on a day to day basis. There is a toolset available that works on cellular energetic healing through the mind, and subconscious healing so that (1) you can permanently free yourself from the ‘helpless’ mentality that is completely false (AA’s are powerful, they are enlightened beings and that part of them remembers that and are confused with how to get back to that because of the cultural trauma that was inflicted upon them). And (2) you can keep yourself free of being reprogrammed with negative messages because you are aware of them and know how to protect your mind/heart/spirit from them. The greatest gift is that you can support others in being able to see them as they see you being unaffected by society and truly living the life you want to live because you are existing in a completely different reality… the reality of living the life you know is your birthright.
P.S. Before someone says, well look at what happened to Bill Cosby…. I have 2 comments to that.
(1) if there is any part of you that feels that something/someone else is your source to have what you want (outside of God), you are beholden to them/influenced by them and may put yourself into situations where you can be manipulated and controlled
(2) Any past dependencies you may have created because you thought it could only come from someone or something, do what is necessary to release them now so you can truly be free
P.P.S
– This path is not for the timid or those who are not fully committed. The rewards are truly great, however it requires true and complete surrender to that part of you that is directly connect to God. The more you are committed to you remembering who you truly are and getting back to your birthright, & the more you surrender, the faster you will see results!
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You would never know it from the corporate media, but a multi-state prison strike by thousands of US prisoners has been under way since Sept. 9, 2016.
At the center of the prisoner’s demands are an end to the last form of legal slavery in the US—the free labor of people convicted of crimes. According to an article in the Intercept:
https://theintercept.com/2016/09/16/the-largest-prison-strike-in-u-s-history-enters-its-second-week/
Prison officials from Florida to California, Ohio, Virginia and Alabama are stonewalling the alternative press and claiming there is no strike. People perceived as leaders are being tossed into solitary confinement or worse. Many strikers are being systematically starved in retaliation. The prisoners call the practice “bird feeding”. An image from a strike in May of this year:
“A prisoner serving a life sentence at Holman prison shared photos of his meals in text messages over the last several days. One picture shows a meal made of two slices of white bread, cereal, a slice of yellow cheese, artificial sugar and a brown sauce the inmate said was prune stew. Another meal was made up of two slices of white bread, an apple, and an unrecognizable white mixture wrapped in plastic.”
https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/striking-prisoners-in-alabama-accuse-officials-of-using-food-as-weapon/
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Reblogged this on Project ENGAGE and commented:
Is the New Jim Crow law just a still a reality above the Mason Dixon Line? What are some factors that this New Jim Crow movement is widespread?
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