Amber Stanley Tuesday, November 14, 2017

The New Jim Crow

Chapter 3 Notes
- She attempts to cut through the indifference that much of the American public feels
toward those who are negatively affected by the War on Drugs.

- The War on Drugs is an indifference often produced by racial prejudice.

- Popular culture has an enormous impact in misrepresenting the reality of drug use
and criminality to the American population.

- Colorblind language, rather than being evidence of the end of racism, is in fact used
to cover up and thereby sustain racist systems.

- It is all too easy for those who wish to ignore racism in the criminal justice system to
do so. Meanwhile, those with enough common sense perceive that the criminal
justice system is very obviously racist.

- Tough on crime, is usually a kind of code for supporting anti-drug efforts.

- Drugs are in fact a very different category of social issue from ordinary crimes such
as theft, assault, and murder.

- Most Americans have tried drugs at least once, and many are indifferent to whether
or not those around them consume drugs.

- People refer to the prejudice that has emerged in the contemporary moment as
racism without racists. It evokes the unconscious bias and structural racism

- Many ordinary people have been trained to associate African Americans with
criminality and drugs. The problem is that, while racism with racists is easy to
identify and denounce, the current system operates in such a way that no single
person can really be charged with blame.

- Instead of allowing the Constitution to be brought up-to-date with this new field of
knowledge, the Supreme Court has so far denied its relevance to criminal justice.

- Alexanders presentation of McCleskey vs. Kemp suggests that the Georgia court
was aware of the way racial bias affects the criminal justice system.

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Amber Stanley Tuesday, November 14, 2017
- According to the court, the only time that racism can be targeted is when there is a
particular individual or group to take the blame.

- The African-American judge aware of unconscious racial bias and the devastating
impact this bias has had on people of color attempted to combat the racial injustice in
sentencing conventions.

- There is a wealth of research to suggest that the criminal justice system is plagued by
racial discrimination at every level.

Evidence has made little impact on the way that the criminal justice system is
actually run.

- Alexanders examination of racism in the criminal justice system shows how expertly
this racism is concealed through commitment to the use of race-neutral language.

This emphasis on colorblindness depends on the idea that race neutrality is

evidence of a lack of racism.

- We are usually encouraged to think of the police as a source of protection from

danger and violence

The reality is that in many communities, police are a major source of danger
and violence. The polices deliberate targeting of vulnerable black communities
locks them into a continuous relationship of antagonism with those
communities, which is only made worse by the ongoing devastation of the drug
war a war with seemingly no end in sight.

- American society has reached a worrying point at which private individuals and
corporations which can be sued for damages can be far more easily held accountable
for racism than the state.

- The states apparent lack of interest in research on racial bias in the criminal justice
system is equally concerning.

- The difference between the law as it is written and what takes place in reality can be
stark.

- In the case of stop and frisk, allowing race to be one factor prevents racial profiling
only in theory.

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Amber Stanley Tuesday, November 14, 2017
This legal loophole has created a climate in which police aggressively target
people of color while most whites are able to go about their lives without
interruption.

This experience has a devastating psychological impact, creating a climate of

fear, distrust, and resentment.