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  • The New Jim Crow

  • Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, 10th Anniversary Edition
  • Written by: Michelle Alexander
  • Narrated by: Karen Chilton
  • Length: 16 hrs and 57 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (208 ratings)

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The New Jim Crow cover art

The New Jim Crow

Written by: Michelle Alexander
Narrated by: Karen Chilton
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Publisher's Summary

Seldom does a book have the impact of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Since it was first published in 2010, it has been cited in judicial decisions and has been adopted in campus-wide and community-wide reads; it helped inspire the creation of the Marshall Project and the new $100 million Art for Justice Fund; it has been the winner of numerous prizes, including the prestigious NAACP Image Award; and it has spent nearly 250 weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Most important of all, it has spawned a whole generation of criminal justice reform activists and organizations motivated by Michelle Alexander’s unforgettable argument that “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it”. As the Birmingham News proclaimed, it is “undoubtedly the most important book published in this century about the U.S.”

Now, 10 years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a 10th-anniversary edition with a new preface by Michelle Alexander that discusses the impact the book has had and the state of the criminal justice reform movement today.

©2010, 2012, 2020 Michelle Alexander (P)2012, 2020 Recorded Books

What listeners say about The New Jim Crow

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible Insight to Mass Incarceration

I had wanted to buy this book in Kindle format but managed to get the Audio at a cheaper cost a while back and frankly am glad I purchased it this way. It was an amazing book to listen to and I was so taken in with the subject matter that I will likely pick up the Kindle format as well just so I can re-read it.

This book opened my eyes to the effects that Mass Incarceration has on anyone who gets caught up in it, primarily in the United States but I believe here in Canada it has similar effects. In the United States, however, I would say it is far more devastating given that the U.S. is considered the land of opportunity. An opportunity lost should you get prosecuted for a crime.

Michelle Alexander makes a brilliant case for how Mass Incarceration and the War on Drugs is devastating the Black Community and is, as the title states, the New Jim Crow. Not only does she focus on the effects on Black people but shows how it can affect White folk as well however not to the same extent. Her argument does not outright claim that Mass Incarceration is put in place for the sole purpose of keeping the Black person down by the ruling White class but if you put it all together you can see that the rules and regulations, the parameters that create Mass Incarceration with the help of the War on Drugs, are geared to keep the poor in their place and right now the bulk of the poor are the Black and Brown in America and therefore Mass Incarceration is geared to keep the Black and Brown down, as it were.

As a review for the Audible book I give the narrator Karen Chilton 5 plus stars. Her voice and reading style are excellent and kept me drawn in. Perfect for this book.

I highly recommend this book to everyone as an eye opening experience as to what is happening to the poor in the United States and why changes need to be made to how people are charged and incarcerated, not just only in the United States but everywhere. Five plus stars.

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must read by all...who wish to be conscious.

loved this book. recommended to me by an activist friend. I owe her a debt of gratitude. that being said activist or not, anyone wanting to be socially conscious needs to read this.

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incredible story but sad that so little is done!!!

The unimaginable amount of money spent in THE USA on Jailing Blacks is beyond ri​dic​u​lous!

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Jaw Dropping

This should be a mandatory read for every American. In a country where freedom is so highly regarded, it is shocking that freedom is denied to so many.

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Sad reality for many blacks in America 🇺🇸

loved it: well wriiten, and well narrated.

Short summary based on my experience: I went to college in North Carolina and have worked and lived in Baltimore's the most "difficult"/destroyed neighborhoods - If you want to survive in America in the New Jim Crow era/ Mass incarceration, just stay away from drugs. As a young black man, I did not have many information in this book at the time, but I used to follow strick rules to navigate through Baltimore and Charlotte, NC. Fortunately, I always had a reliable transportation and supportive family. Looking back, one day my car broke down and I was late for work. I tried to flagdown a Taxi in Baltimore, I could not believe all these black taxi drives did not want to stop and pick up a young black man. I just gave up and took the bus. Now I know why!

One day, we had a major car accident near Thomasville, NC. The driver got away while the police where there- Now I know why! A special shoutout to young white girl and her company who called the embulance for us and saved our lives.

When it comes to "justice system," I did not have many police encounters other than one or two minor traffic violations for many years in Baltimore, Charlotte, & Rayleigh, NC. I remember, the police used to hangout our neighborhood and sometimes block the sidewalk to harass the pedestrians; After reading this book, I believe I was just lucky and too busy to allow them to get me.

Moreover, it is very hard to swallow that globalization was designed to destroy American people and to empower citizens of foreign countries...Now I know why!

There are so many good people out there from every race, they need to find a way to work together and save many young American lives. Finally, given their background, Biden and Haris must do one thing: mass amnesty for many first time drug offenders.

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  • Kat
  • 2021-08-31

excellent research and presentation of information

This book really presents the information in a digestible format.

The situation experienced by the black community in the USA is heartbreaking.

I'm not from the USA. My interest in the book is due to the recent events that have occurred. This book sheds a new light on it. It provides a deeper understanding about the tension that obviously exists in the USA.

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BLM

A book everyone should listen to.
be accountable for your own learning about systenic racism in the USA.

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2 people found this helpful

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must read book

informative, evocative, infuriating, hopeful, helpful, relevant, analytic, well-documented, and classic. It's impossible to understand our age without this book, and forces you to conclude that you don't need to control an entire people to control the destiny of that people.

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1 person found this helpful

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Stats that speak

Great overview of how we got from Civil Rights to Human Rights and from King to Obama and still are not at the promiseland.

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A Must Read

Even 10 years later this still is so relevant. Perhaps even more so, in fact. This book is read so well, and the narrative flows so easily that I could not stop listening.

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2 people found this helpful