The New Jim Crow

This is the 2012-2013 UU Common Read: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander.

Wow.  The subject matter is so compelling, and the more I read the more angry I felt that our society could be this unfair to people.  Alexander lays out a detailed and persuasive argument that the criminal system, especially the War on Drugs, is stacked against people of color, and that this unfair design to the system is every bit as much of a system of racial control as Jim Crow laws ever were.

Everyone should read this book.  That said, I did find that the book begins to repeat itself by the mid-point.  But even so, I still respected the sheer size of the argument Alexander has put together here.

An interesting article about the book here.

A discussion guide is available from the UUA.

In our congregation, our minister has given a sermon on the book, and we're doing a class in our Adult Education program.

Read it!