How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Under-caste
I first heard about this sister and her work via NY Oil’s Build Sessions Radio Show, and I was immediately impressed and humbled by her depth of intelligence. No doubt about it, this Queen is a creadit to our people, and anyone serious about raising their conscousness needs to cop her groundbreaking work: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
The Origins of the New Jim Crow
According to Ms. Alexander, the war on drugs opened the gate to the new Jim Crow era, and was not waged in response to a rising drug problem in America – crack/cocaine use was actually declining at the start of Regan’s so-called war on drugs! – but was the Regan administration’s efforts to publicize the crack epidemic, associate it with Blacks and link 
Blacks to Democrats.. The strategy worked beautifully. Regan convinced congress to authorize $1.7 billion to fund the War on Drugs, instituted a “drug czar” to oversee the government media campaign, and passed laws dictating mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses.
In an interview she did with Democracy Now!, Michelle breaks down the strategy behind the war on drugs: “The drug war was launched in response to racial politics, not drug crime” she says. ” The drug war was part of the Republican Party’s grand strategy – ofter referred to as the ‘southern strategy’ – effort to appeal to poor working class white voters who were threatened… by the gains of the civil rights movement particularly desegregation, busing, and affirmative action. The Republican Party found that it could get democrats to defect form the Democratic Party New Deal coalition and join the Republican Party through racially coded political appeals on issues of crime and welfare.”
It has since been revealed that during this same time period, the CIA opened the first pipeline between Colombia’s cocaine cartels and the black neighborhoods of Los Angeles, which thereafter became the “crack” capital of the world. The cocaine that flooded in helped spark a crack explosion in urban America . . . and provided the cash and connections needed for L.A.’s gangs to buy automatic weapons. One of the key players in this was Manuel Noriega, who been on the CIA’s payroll since 1966, and has been transporting drugs with the CIA’s knowledge since 1972. All this culminated with the 1989 invasion of Panama to oust one time CIA ally Manuel Noriega, a story we will build on later.
But I digress.
The Aftermath of Regan’s War on Drugs
The aftermath of Regan’s war on drugs (in reality a war on the inner city), was incarceration of Blacks and Latinos on a scale not seen anywhere at any time in the recent history of mankind.
Most people don’t like it when I say this. It makes them angry. In the “era of colorblindness” there’s a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we as a nation have “moved beyond” race. Here are a few facts that run counter to that triumphant racial narrative:
*There are more African Americans under correctional control today — in prison or jail, on probation or parole — than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began.
*As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race.
* A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. The recent disintegration of the African American family is due in large part to the mass imprisonment of black fathers.
*If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas have been labeled felons for life. (In the Chicago area, the figure is nearly 80%.) These men are part of a growing undercaste — not class, caste — permanently relegated, by law, to a second-class status. They can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits, much as their grandparents and great-grandparents were during the Jim Crow era.
Fathers have been removed from homes. Whole communities have been laid to waste. Gang violence has raged through formerly stable black communities. Black men specifically are slapped with felony charges before they are old enough to vote, resulting in complete political alienation and disenfranchisement. Specifically, the rise in drug incarcerations and sentencing rules has resulted in a felony undercaste, according to Michelle. Here are a few facts:
- As a convicted felon, you are not eligible for federal assistance, including your ability to receive food stamps and pursue higher education, as convicted felons are not eligible to receive grants, loans, or work study.
- You cannot hold professional licenses, including license to teach or practice medicine
- your ability to travel to foreign countries or become a naturalized citizen of the U.S. may be impacted. For example, countries like Canada do not allow people who have been involved in criminal activity to enter their country.
- You cannot serve jury duty, making it impossible for former felons to be tried later by a jury of their peers
- As a convicted felon, you will also not be able to own or possess firearms, vote, or receive security clearance for government jobs.
- A felony makes it very difficult to find a job, as many employers are hesitant to hire convicted felons. The jobs available tend to be limited to low paying jobs that make it impossible for a man to support himself, let alone a family. Also, if you are one of the lucky few to get a job, up to 100% of your wages can be garnished to pay back the cost of their incarceration
The result, according to Michelle, is a revolving penitentiary door that keeps black men returning to prison - the easiest way for them to survive. The effects on the Black community are evident.
This book is required reading for every Black man and woman in America. Buy it and read it today!
About the Author
MICHELLE ALEXANDER is a longtime civil rights advocate and litigator. She won a 2005 Soros Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Mortiz College of Law at Ohio State University. Alexander served for several years as director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, and subsequently directed the Civil Rights Clinics at Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor. Alexander is a former law clerk for Justice Harry Blackmun on the U.S. Supreme Court, and has appeared as a commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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