Is It Time To Go Beyond "The New Jim Crow"? The Limits of Michelle Alexander's View of Mass Incarceration

Send us a text

This year marks the 15-year anniversary of the first publication of Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow. 

The text was praised as challenging the post-racial ethos that rose after the election of Obama by presenting a compelling analysis of mass incarceration driven by anti-black racism creating a permanent under caste in American, akin to the Jim Crow system of the South. While praised as a bible for liberal criminal justice reform advocates, many have questioned the book's limitations and the limited result of the criminal justice reform movement the text spawned. 

In the episode, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle director of public policy Dayvon Love and Director of Research Lawrence Grandpre reflect on the legacy of the New Jim Crow, arguing that despite the author intention, the text has been used to focus reform on non-violent drug offenders and cost savings because the Left's inability to directly address their own anxieties around working class Black communities. Despite the book's argument around negative perceptions of Black communities being at the heart of mass incarceration and Democratic Party acquiescence to these super predator stereotypes, the failure of the text to use the lessons of Black radical tradition and indict the left anxieties around the rational decision some Black folk make to carry guns and the reality of violence as part of the realty of white supremacy has led to movement to allow long sentence for minor violent crime counteract the limited progress of releasing folks convicted for drug possession. This has allowed largely symbolic reforms, technocratic, non-profit driven reform like communing sentences for cannabis possession to trade off with policies which would actually empower the communities most impacted by mass incarceration to actively get the resources they need to control the origins that produce public safety in community. 

Support the show

In Search of Black Power is a Black-owned internet show and podcast. This podcast is sponsored and produced by Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (LBS).

The internet show is published in collaboration with Black Liberation Media (BLM)