Our nation’s prison and jail population had quintupled in 30 years, leaving us with the highest incarceration rate in the world. We had recently birthed another caste system - a system of mass incarceration - that locked millions of poor people and people of color in literal and virtual cages. But I also knew that, if we did, there would be a price to pay.Įverything I knew through experience and study told me that we as a nation did not fully understand the nature of the moment we were in. I hoped against all reason that we would actually do it. As the election approached, I felt an odd sense of hope and dread. I was in disbelief that our country would actually elect a black man to be the leader of the so-called free world. When I was researching and writing the book, Barack Obama had not yet been elected president of the United States. I wrote it to challenge our nation to reckon with the recurring cycles of racial reform, retrenchment and rebirth of caste-like systems that have defined our racial history since slavery. Ten years have passed since my book, “The New Jim Crow,” was published.
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