Michelle Alexander

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About Michelle Alexander
A longtime civil rights advocate and litigator, Michelle Alexander won a 2005 Soros Justice Fellowship and now holds a joint appointment at the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. Alexander served for several years as the director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, which spearheaded the national campaign against racial profiling. At the beginning of her career she served as a law clerk on the United States Supreme Court for Justice Harry Blackmun. She lives outside Columbus, Ohio.
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Titles By Michelle Alexander
Named one of the most important nonfiction books of the 21st century by Entertainment Weekly‚ Slate‚ Chronicle of Higher Education‚ Literary Hub, Book Riot‚ and Zora
A tenth-anniversary edition of the iconic bestseller—"one of the most influential books of the past 20 years," according to the Chronicle of Higher Education—with a new preface by the author
"It is in no small part thanks to Alexander's account that civil rights organizations such as Black Lives Matter have focused so much of their energy on the criminal justice system."
—Adam Shatz, London Review of Books
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 bestseller 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, ten years after it was first published, The New Press is proud to issue a tenth-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.
El libro de Michelle Alexander arroja nuevas perspectivas sobre la profunda injusticia que se está produciendo hoy en EE.UU., planteando una pregunta básica: ¿Cómo ha sido el tratamiento a la comunidad negra a lo largo de toda su historia? Primero fue la Esclavitud, luego Jim Crow, la segregación, el terror del Ku Klux Klan, etc. Hoy es la brutalidad y el asesinato por parte de la policía, la criminalización al por mayor y el encarcelamiento en masa. Una vez más, la discriminación ha sido legalizada e institucionalizada.
"O sistema de castas raciais nos EUA não foi superado, foi meramente redesenhado", diz a jurista. Ao analisar o sistema prisional dos EUA, Alexander fornece uma das mais eloquentes exposições de como opera o racismo estrutural e institucionalizado nas sociedades ocidentais contemporâneas. Para a autora, o encarceramento em massa se organiza por meio de uma lógica abrangente e bem disfarçada de controle social racializado e funciona de maneira semelhante ao sistema 'Jim Crow' de segregação, abolido formalmente nos anos 1960 após o movimento por direitos civis nos Estados Unidos. Não é à toa que este país possui atualmente a maior população carcerária do mundo (com o Brasil pouco atrás, em 4º lugar, depois da China e da Rússia).