Drug Policy as Race Policy: Best Seller “The New Jim Crow”

By Jennifer Schuessler, New York Times

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The lifelong exclusion many offenders face includes  job discrimination, elimination from juries and voter rolls, and even disqualification from food stamps, public housing and student loans. “It’s easy to be completely unaware that this vast new system of racial and social control has emerged,” she said. “Unlike in Jim Crow days, there were no ‘Whites Only’ signs. This system is out of sight, out of mind.”

Professor Alexander, who is black, knew that African-Americans were overrepresented in prison, though she resisted the idea that this was anything more than unequal implementation of colorblind laws. But her work as director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Racial Justice Project in Northern California, she said, opened her eyes to the extent of the lifelong exclusion many offenders face, including job discrimination, elimination from juries and voter rolls, and even disqualification from food stamps, public housing and student loans.

“It’s easy to be completely unaware that this vast new system of racial and social control has emerged,” she said. “Unlike in Jim Crow days, there were no ‘Whites Only’ signs. This system is out of sight, out of mind.”

Continue reading Schuessler’s thoughts on the book.

Some people consider the war on drugs to be a war on Blacks.

Find more stories about the Black experience.