A conversation with Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander discusses her groundbreaking book with the 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 Teaching Tolerance project and explains the importance of today鈥檚 young people learning about racial bias in the criminal justice system.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is widely regarded as one of the most important books of the decade addressing the subject of racial justice.
The 蜜桃传媒鈥檚 Teaching Tolerance project recently had a with the author, Michelle Alexander, about mass incarceration in America and how teachers can address this difficult topic in their classrooms.
In the book, Alexander traces racial bias in today鈥檚 criminal justice system to a 鈥渓aw-and-order鈥� and 鈥済et-tough鈥� movement that originated with former segregationists in the wake of the civil rights movement.
Today, America has both the largest prisoner population and highest per-capita incarceration rate in the world, with seven times the number of prisoners in 1972. The National Academy of Sciences recently concluded that this expansion of the prisoner population is unprecedented in world history.
Teaching Tolerance will release a teacher鈥檚 guide based on excerpts from The New Jim Crow this fall.聽
Today鈥檚 students, Alexander says, 鈥渉ave the power to change the system. It鈥檚 easy to imagine that a system like mass incarceration can鈥檛 be dismantled. The same was said about slavery, the same was said about Jim Crow. And yet a powerful movement, led in large part by courageous, young people who were unwilling to accept the status quo, who were bold and brave and who were truth-tellers, helped to bring that Jim Crow system to its knees.鈥�
Alexander鈥檚 insights are not just for teachers and students. They鈥檙e for everyone concerned about justice and equality.
And with Alexander at 7 p.m. (Eastern) Tuesday, Sept. 23.
