by Sophia Contreras
Michelle Alexander—activist, author, professor of law and former American Civil Liberties Union attorney—will make her way to Central Connecticut State University to discuss her nationally recognized book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
Hosted by CCSU’s Student Activities Leadership and Development department, the talk will discuss Alexander’s book and the issues surrounding race in the United States.
Alexander’s book discusses the racial caste system in America, exploring how the legal system enforces a new caste system that targets minorities—predominately colored men—despite the abolishment of slavery and Jim Crow laws. Alexander refers to this new system as “the new Jim Crow.”
Still, Alexander claims her main purpose when writing the book was for it to be a learning tool for young students.
“If we don’t pull back the curtain for young people and help them to see how unconscious bias operates [and] how systems of discrimination operate, then they will continue to operate on a false belief that racial discrimination is a part of our past and not our present. They will find themselves being part of the problem rather than part of the solution,” Alexander said in an interview.
Alexander stated that she hopes that by the nation reading her book and her touring the country promoting her ideas, people will open their eyes to the brokenness of the U.S. legal system and will want to invoke change in their own communities.
More than anything, this event is especially beneficial to students studying criminal justice or social work, as Alexander’s book examines how careers in those particular fields impact our legal system, and how, as an employee in those fields, a person has the power to do something to change the lives of the people they encounter.
What i do not realize is in truth how you’re now not really a lot more smartly-preferred than you might be now. You’re very intelligent. You realize thus significantly in the case of this subject, produced me personally consider it from a lot of numerous angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be involved until it is something to accomplish with Girl gaga! Your own stuffs nice. Always handle it up!