Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, speaks at Ohio University on Wednesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. in Baker Theater. A reception and book signing follow.
Michelle Alexander
Alexander, Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University, will deliver a lecture on her groundbreaking work on mass incarceration in the U.S. prison system.
The event is sponsored by Student Senate and the Black Student Cultural Planning Board.
Professor Alexander, a former litigator-turned-legal-scholar, is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New York Review of Books writes, “Now and then a book comes along that might in time touch the public and educate social commentators, policymakers, and politicians about a glaring wrong that we have been living with that we also somehow don’t know how to face. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is such a work.”
In her book, Professor Alexander argues that although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status — much like their grandparents before them. She shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness.
The New Jim Crow presents a powerful argument for scaling back the drug war and placing mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.
Seating is limited, so please arrive early to ensure attendance.
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