War on Drugs — a form of racism that prevents African-Americans from full participation in democracy

[Scuba]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/author-alexander-urges-crowd-to-end-mass-incarceration-b99359928z1-277226992.html

Author Alexander urges crowd to end mass incarceration

Author and civil rights leader Michelle Alexander on Friday urged citizens of Milwaukee and the nation to begin a new movement for justice and an end to mass incarceration. "It's time to end the madness now," Alexander, author of "The New Jim Crow" and a law professor at Ohio State University, told an enthusiastic crowd at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Her book lays out the argument that the mass incarceration of black men in the United States — prompted by the "War on Drugs" — is a form of racism that prevents African-Americans from full participation in democracy and subjects them to "discrimination, exclusion and social contempt." Blatant discrimination based on race has been replaced by a more subtle form: disproportionate imprisonment of black men, which results in lack of "employment, housing, access to education and public benefits," according to her book.

"There is no better, no more important, time for us to be having this conversation than right here, right now," Alexander told about 2,000 spectators at the full-to-capacity event. "Here in Milwaukee, more than anywhere else in the nation, the crisis that we are experiencing can be seen in full relief. There is nowhere in the entire world where the crisis for black men in the criminal justice system is more acute."

Citing statistics from a recent University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study, Alexander said that Wisconsin has the highest black incarceration rate in the nation. "Here in the state of Wisconsin, more than half of young black men from Milwaukee County have been incarcerated in state correctional facilities and then stripped of their civil rights — rights supposedly won during the civil rights movement," she said. "These young men in Milwaukee and nationwide comprise a growing under-caste in America. Not class. Caste. Relegated to a permanent second-class status by law."

[merrily]

1. It's about racism. It's about politics, especially if convicts cannot vote.

It's about money. It's about power.

It's Complicated.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Kick for Michelle Alexander. n/t