Follow-up to "Lecture" on Chapter 1 of The New Jim Crow

Sorry about getting side-tracked on the JFK assassination this morning. I felt I could and should have done a better job talking about Chapter 1, The Rebirth of Caste. Let me follow-up a bit on my remarks to make sense of what Michelle Alexander is trying to do in that chapter.

A. First and foremost, this is a historical chapter which I believe does a good job of describing the different forms of racial caste systems, going back to the development of slavery. I believe she adds confirmation to many points we made earlier in connection with the video series, for example that passage on origin of the concept of race and how it was used both to justify slavery and justify the extermination of the Indians (p. 23). I believe she is right on target in talking about the origin of Jim Crow after Reconstruction. Where her argument becomes more controversial, of course, is her interpretation of the post-Civil Rights era (1970-present) in which she argues that "law and order" and the "War on Drugs" are the colorblind slogans of the new racial caste system. In Chapter 2 she goes into much more detail on the evidence of racial bias in the law and order regime of modern times. In Chapter 1 she talks more about the politics of this all, which cuts across political party lines. I especially appreciate what she says about the Clinton Administration, which, in its effort to be tough on crime and drugs, escalated mass incarceration. Rather than try to address some of the underlying problems in the black community, they went after the drug abusers and dealers who could be seen more as symptoms of these problems rather than the cause. Parenthetically, I would even say that the Obama Administration has been reluctant to address this issue for fear of being labeled "soft" on crime and drugs.

So, that brings us up to Chapter 2, which I will take up on Thursday. You should be much father along in your reading and keep in mind those two essay topics, of which you will write on one for next Tuesday.