Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Michelle Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colordblindness" addresses the crowd Wednesday, Sept. 22. (Photo by Joey Springer)

“We have not ended the racial caste system in America, we have merely redesigned it,” said Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” at her discussion Sept. 22.

Students, faculty and community members gathered to hear the lecture and ask the first-time author questions. Alexander intended her book to be “a wake-up call.”

“It was my greatest hope in writing The New Jim Crow that it would help to stimulate public dialogue and debate about a phenomenon that has been ignored for far too long in this country – the mass incarceration of poor people of color,” Alexander said. “I’m thrilled that I’ve been invited to share my work and research, and that the university community is eager to have a serious conversation about our nation’s undercaste.”

She recognized that the idea may seem absurd, even admitting that 10 years ago, she thought a bright orange sign in Oakland, Calif., that said “the drug war is the new Jim Crow” was ridiculous. However, after spending 10 years working on issues of racial profiling, drug law enforcement, police brutality and attempting to assist individuals “attempting to ‘re-enter’ a society that never seemed to have much use for them in the first place”, she finds the claim irrefutable.

“With the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, people of all colors are more reluctant than ever to acknowledge that an enormous percentage of the African American community remains locked in a permanent, second-class status. Our nation’s prison population has quintupled for reasons rooted more in politics than crime, and the racial dimension of this tragedy is undeniable. In major American cities today, the majority of young African American men are behind bars or branded felons for life. And once branded a felon, you’re trapped. You’re ushered into a parallel social universe in which you can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. So many of the old forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind, are suddenly legal again once you’ve been labeled a felon.”

When asked the best way to take a stand on the issue, Alexander responded that it is “not easy.” Quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., she continued, “You have to be willing to stand alone if you are going to stand for justice. This is as true today, as it was back then.”

She said the most important thing anyone can do is to raise awareness and break the silence about how mass incarceration works and how it has devastated communities. She hopes The New Jim Crow will provide the information people need to start discussing “the devastating impact of the War on Drugs and the ‘get tough’ movement on poor communities of color in the U.S.”

“Nothing short of a major social movement has any hope of ending the mass incarceration in the U.S.,” she concluded.

The Center on Children and Families and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations sponsored Alexander’s lecture.

Students, faculty and community members discuss race relations and Michelle Alexander's new book. (Photo by Joey Springer)

Students, faculty and community members came together for a book discussion on Wednesday, Sept. 15, in anticipation of legal scholar and Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Professor Michelle Alexander’s upcoming visit.

The discussion focused on Alexander’s new book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” which is the topic of Alexander’s lecture Wednesday, Sept. 22, at noon in the UF Law’s Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom.

The book examines the current state of race and racial justice in the United States, stating that the racial caste system that existed during the pre-civil rights era is still in place, it has just been redesigned.

Alexander points out that even though the U.S. has elected its first black president, many young black men remain disadvantaged in major U.S. cities because they are labeled as felons or are already behind bars. The criminal justice system – while maintaining an outward stance of colorblindness – serves as a modern means of racial control, according to the book.

Katheryn Russell-Brown, Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, and Nancy Dowd, Director of the Center on Children and Families, organized the event with the goal of having “informed conversations about these important topics,” Brown said.

“We, as faculty, are no more knowledgeable or insightful than you, as students,” Dowd said. “We are all trying to find our way together in examining these important issues. It was a profound experience to read this book.”

At the book discussion, Adessa Barker, 3L, noted the differences between the new and old Jim Crow. “It’s subtle. Once you get the stamp of ‘convict,’ it affects your whole life, and puts your family into a downward spiral.”

The New Jim Crow calls for a reevaluation of the current system and seeks to bring the issue of mass incarceration to the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in the U.S.

The discussion is sponsored by the Center on Children and Families and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations. The event is free and open to the public.

About Michelle Alexander:
Alexander joined the OSU faculty in 2005 where she holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the OSU faculty, she was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, where she served as Director of the Civil Rights Clinic. Alexander has significant experience in the field of civil rights advocacy and litigation. She has litigated civil rights cases in private practice, as well as engaged in innovative litigation and advocacy efforts in the non-profit sector. For several years, Alexander served as the director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, which spearheaded a national campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement. While an associate at Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, she specialized in plaintiff-side class action suits alleging race and gender discrimination. Alexander is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.