Professional Documents
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T H E N E W JIM CR OW
denial of the right to vote, denial of ed ucationa l opp or tunity, d enial of food
stamp s and oth er pub lic ben efits, and exclusion from jury service-are sudd
enly legal. As a crimi nal , you have scarcely m ore rights, and arguably less
respect , than a black ma n living in Alabama at th e heigh t of Jim Crow.
We have not end ed racial caste in Americ a; we have merely redesigned it.
I reached the conclu sion s presented in this book reluc tantly. Ten years
ago, I wo uld h ave argued strenuou sly against th e central claim made
here na m ely, that something akin to a racial caste system curren tly
exists in the U nited Sta tes. Indeed , if Barack Obam a had been elec ted
president back
then , I would have argu ed tha t his election m arked the nation 's triumph
over racial caste-the final n ail in the coffin of Jim Crow. My elation would
have been tempered by the distance ye t to be traveled to reach the promis ed
land of racial ju stice in Am erica, but my conviction th at n othin g remotely
similar t o Jim Crow exists in this country would have been stea dfast.
Today my elation over Obam a's election is tempered by a far more sober
ing awareness. As an African American woman, with three young children
who will never know a world in which a black man could not be president of
the United States, I was beyond thrilled on election night. Yet when I walked
out of the election night party, f ull of hope and enthusiasm, I was imm
edi a tely reminded of the harsh realities of the N ew Jim Crow. A black man
was on his knees in the gutter, hands cuffed behind his back, as several
police officers stood around him talking, jo lting, and ignoring his hum an exis
ten ce. People poured ou t of the buildin g; many stared for a momen t at
the bl ack
!NTF\ O D UCTIO N
man cowering in the street , and then averted their gaze. What did the
and it was largely invisible, even to people, like me, who spent most of their
civil rights victories of the 1950s an d 1960s. Even in the face of growing
so cial and politi cal opposition to rem edial poli cies such as affirma tive
action , I clung to the notion that the evils of J im Crow are beh ind u s and
that , while we have a long way to go to fulfill the dream of an
egalitarian, m ultir acial democra cy, we have m ade real progress and are now
strugglin g to hold on to the gain s of the pa st. I thought my j ob as a civil
rights lavvyer was to join with the allies of rac ial progress to resist attacks
on
affirmative
ac tion
and
Crow
segregation , inclu ding our still sep arate and un equal system of educa tion.
I u nderstood the probl em s plaguing poor communiti es of color, in cludin g
problems associated with crime and rising incarceration rates, to be a
function of p overty and
continuin g lega cy of slavery and J im Crow. N ever did I seri ously consid er
the possibility that a new racial caste system wa s operatin g in thi s country.
The new system had been developed and im plem en ted swif tly,
TH E N EW J I M C R OW
I NTR O D U CTI O N
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TI-I E N E W J I M C R OW
even the Urban League came to take the claims of genocide seriously. In
its 1990 report "The State of Black America ," it stated: "There is at least
one concept that m ust be recogni zed if one is to see the perva sive and
insidious nature of the drug probl em for the African American
community. Though difficult to accept , tha t is the concept of genocide." 4
While the conspiracy theories were initially dismissed as far-fetched, if
not downright loony, the word on the street turned out to be right, at least
to a point. The CIA admit ted in 1998 that guerilla armies it actively
supported in Nicaragua were smuggling illegal drugs in to the United
States-drugs tha t were malting their way onto the streets of inner-city
black neigh borhoods in the form of crack cocaine. The CIA also admitted
tha t, in the midst of the War on Drugs, it blocked la w enforcement efforts to
investigate illegal drug networks that were helping to fund i ts covert war
i n Nicaragua. 5
It bears emphasis that the CIA never admitted (nor has any evidence
been revealed to support the claim) that it intentionally sought the
destruc tion of the black comm unity by allowing illegal drugs to be
smuggled into the United States. Nonetheless, conspiracy theorists
surely must be for given for their. bold accusation of genocid e, in light
of the devasta tion wrought by crack cocaine and the drug war, and the
odd coincidence that an illegal drug crisis suddenly appeared in the black
comm unity af ter-not before-a drug war had been declared. In fact , the
War on Drugs began a t a time when illegal drug use was on the decline. 6
During this same time pe riod, however, a war was declared, causing
arrests and convictions for drug offenses to skyrocket , especially among
peopl e of color.
The im pact of the drug war has been astoundin g. In less than thirty years,
the U .S penal pop ula tion exploded from around 300,000 to mor e
than 2 million , vvith drug conviction s accounting for the majority of th e
increase.7 The United States now has the highest rate of in carceration in
the world, dwarfing th e rates of n early every developed country, even su
rpassing those in highly repre ssive regimes like R ussia , China, and Iran.
In Germany, 93 people are in prison for every l00 ,000 adults and
childr en . In the Unit ed Sta tes, the ra te is roughly eight times th at, or 750
per 100,000. 8
I NTR O D U CTI O N
The racial dimension of mass inca rcera tion is its most striking featu re.
No other country in the world i mprisons so many of its racial or ethnic
minori ties . The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black
population th an South Afri ca d id a t the heigh t of apartheid. In \i\!a
sbington , D.C., our
ne
ar
Similar rates of
ly
all
Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkab
th
os
e
in
th
e
po
or
es
t
ne
to engage in drug crime than people of color. 11 That is not what one wou
guess, however, when entering our na tion's prisons and jails , which are ovE
flowing with black and brown drug offenders. In some states, black m<
have been admit ted to prison on drug charges at rates twenty to fif ty tim
greater than those of white men. 12 And in major cities wracked by the dn
war, as many as 80 percent of young African American men now have crin
nal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest
their lives. 13 These young men are part of a growing undercaste, perm
nently locked up and locked out of mainstrea m society.
ig
h
It may be surprising to some that drug crime was declining, not rising, wh
a drug war was declared. From a historical perspective, however, the lack
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I N TR O D U CTI O N
TH E N EW J I M C R OW
times
greater
than
that of other
16
10
I NTR O D U C TI O N
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initia tive
to docu ment the voting record of mem bers of Congress. The let ter explained
th at i ts forthcoming report would show "how each representa tive and sena
tor cast his or h er vote on som e of th e most important civil rights issues of
2007, including voting rights, affirm ative action , immigration , nomin ation s,
education , ha te crimes, employmen t , h ealth, hou si ng, and poverty." Cri
mi n al ju stice issues did not make th e list. That sam e broad -based coalition
organized a major conferen ce in October 2007, entitled Why We Can't Wait:
Reversing the Retreat on Civil Righ t s, which includ ed panels
school integra tion, employment discrimination , housing
and
discussing
lending
dis
crimina tion, economic ju stice, environmental justi ce, disa bility righ ts, age
discrimina tion, and immigran ts ' rights. Not a single pan el wa s devoted to
criminal justice reform.
The elected leaders of the African Am erican comm unity have a
much
broader m anda te than civil rights groups, bu t they, too, frequen tly
overlook crimin a l ju stice. In January 2009, for example, the Congressional
Black Caucu s sent a letter to h undreds of
community and
organization
leaders who have worked with the cau cu s over the years, soliciting general
informa tion about them and requestin g that they identify their priori ties. More
than thirty- five topics were listed as areas of potential special interest, including
taxes, defense, immigration , agriculture, housing, banking,
higher
educa
have stren uously opposed discriminat01y crack sentencing laws and guide
that "despite the civil righ ts victories of our past , racial prejudi ce still
pervades the criminal jus tice system." Visitors to the \Neb site were urged to
color from schools to j ails. The national ACLU recently developed a racial
join the NAACP in order to "protect the hard-earned civil righ ts gains of the
ju stice program tha t includ es criminal justice issues among its core priori
past three decades ." No one visiting the Web site would learn tha t the mass
ties and has created a promising Drug Law Reform Project. And thanks
Ima gin e if civil rights organiza tion s and Afri can American leaders in
practice .
racial ju stice agenda . It would have seem ed a bsurd , given tha t racial
Barack Obam a, i s
dan gerously misguided. Th e colorblind pub lic consen su s tha t pr eva ils in Am
eri ca today-i.e . , th e w idespread belief th a t