In The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, a comparison is made between modern mass incarceration, fueled by the War on Drugs, and old Jim Crow laws. This comparison is made through the examination of the American police state and felons rights in relation to black bodies. While this issue is something that, Alexander argues, affects primarily black people in the United States, the book is clearly aimed at a white educated audience for whom these issues have less direct ramifications. This affects the solutions proposed at the end of the book, framing them in a way that perpetuates the oppressor/oppressed binary by allowing white people to use their power to guide the revolution rather than making it one that is in the hands of the very people the system oppresses.
The audience of the book, while discussing an issue that is extremely salient for black Americans, is mainly the white middle class. Many call the book a call to action for the wealthy, white liberal population that the book has been said to target. This becomes more apparent when looking at what media outlets discussed the book after its release, an example of who was reading and discussing it. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for months after its release (Mahapatra, 2013). The reviews of the book were limited to media outlets, such as NPR …show more content…
However, the suggestions are limited to what “whites should” do, with this phrase being repeated like a pseudo activism laundry list (Alexander, 2012: 257). She argues that whites need to separate from the “tendency to cling tightly to one’s advantages” and cease to “rationalize the suffering and exclusion of others,” in order to “cultivate an ethic of genuine care, compassion, and concern for every human being” (2012: 258). This suggestion, while well intentioned, smacks of a call to colonialist action based in savior
The audience of the book, while discussing an issue that is extremely salient for black Americans, is mainly the white middle class. Many call the book a call to action for the wealthy, white liberal population that the book has been said to target. This becomes more apparent when looking at what media outlets discussed the book after its release, an example of who was reading and discussing it. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for months after its release (Mahapatra, 2013). The reviews of the book were limited to media outlets, such as NPR …show more content…
However, the suggestions are limited to what “whites should” do, with this phrase being repeated like a pseudo activism laundry list (Alexander, 2012: 257). She argues that whites need to separate from the “tendency to cling tightly to one’s advantages” and cease to “rationalize the suffering and exclusion of others,” in order to “cultivate an ethic of genuine care, compassion, and concern for every human being” (2012: 258). This suggestion, while well intentioned, smacks of a call to colonialist action based in savior