Imatge de l'autor

Per altres autors anomenats Michelle Alexander, vegeu la pàgina de desambiguació.

4+ obres 5,242 Membres 140 Ressenyes 4 preferits

Sobre l'autor

Crèdit de la imatge: Urban Habitat

Obres de Michelle Alexander

Obres associades

The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story (2021) — Col·laborador — 1,460 exemplars
The Best American Essays 2019 (2019) — Col·laborador — 129 exemplars
Inside This Place, Not of It: Narratives from Women's Prisons (2011) — Pròleg, algunes edicions112 exemplars
Becoming Ms. Burton: From Prison to Recovery to Leading the Fight for Incarcerated Women (2017) — Introducció, algunes edicions85 exemplars

Etiquetat

Coneixement comú

Nom normalitzat
Alexander, Michelle
Nom oficial
Alexander, Michelle
Altres noms
ALEXANDER, Michelle
Data de naixement
1967-10-07
Gènere
female
Nacionalitat
USA
País (per posar en el mapa)
USA
Educació
Vanderbilt University
Stanford Law School
Professions
professor
attorney

Membres

Ressenyes

This has to be one of the finest polemics I have ever read on the relationship between race and society.

One cannot close this book without the uneasy feeling that not only are black males less free than they were four decades ago but that it is intentional, that the American system is intentionally working against them.

Prior to Richard Nixon's announcement of a "War on Drugs" on June 18, 1971, young back males were in America free-ish. In the intervening fifty or so years American society has turned its back on the civil rights victories of the 1960's to build a new era of mass incarceration and mass surveillance.

Today thousands of black youth languish behind bars for convictions of minor drug charges that would cause a political crisis if the laws were applied equally to black and white youth. When those same men leave prison, there is an equally barbaric code to keep them subservient to the state and forever branded as undesirables.

When this book was first published in 2010 some 65 million Americans had criminal records including tens of millions who were arrested but not convicted of crimes but were excluded from public housing. Overwhelmingly, the majority of them were blacks and brown-skinned men.

The justice system is so overwhelmed by the numbers that it is slanted toward plea bargaining youth out of the courts where they then enter a nightmare from which they do not awake.

"Entering a plea condemns a man to a form of civic death in America" and reverses the promise of the 14th Amendment which promises all citizens due process and equal protection under the laws. In point of practice, the War on Drugs ensures that blacks will suffer the most grievously.

And if the accused enter American jails as poor, indigent, and often homeless individuals, they will sure as shooting come out equally poor.

The story of Florida is most telling, where jail book-in fees, jail per-diem fees, public defender application fees, pre-sentence report fees, public defenders re-coupment fees, residential and work-release program fees, parole and probation supervision fees, late fees, and payment program fees permanently attach to jailbirds.

70% of offenders and ex-offenders are high school dropouts and functionally illiterate. They don't qualify even if most employers would hire them, which they won't. Even if they are hired, up to 65% of their wages can be withheld from them for child support (which accumulates while they are in jail), and up to 35% for court related fees.

And if they don't pay they can go back to prison.

The system of mass incarceration in America is a success, but not at deterring crime. It succeeds at controlling and subsuming black America in a New Jim Crow era.
… (més)
 
Marcat
MylesKesten | Hi ha 138 ressenyes més | Jan 23, 2024 |
Every bit as compelling and important as you have heard. You should read it, and so should jurists and legislators everywhere.
 
Marcat
Mark_Feltskog | Hi ha 138 ressenyes més | Dec 23, 2023 |
There are many excellent books about racism and social justice and I've read quite a few. But I think this is the one I'd put at the top of my required reading list.
 
Marcat
mmcrawford | Hi ha 138 ressenyes més | Dec 5, 2023 |

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Estadístiques

Obres
4
També de
5
Membres
5,242
Popularitat
#4,756
Valoració
½ 4.4
Ressenyes
140
ISBN
40
Llengües
3
Preferit
4

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