I had the same reaction. I first learned about The New Jim Crow because of a post on a blog, and I even
made a topic about it once I'd finished the book. It's what made me realize just how clueless I was about those issues and got me interested in reading about racism more broadly.
This is quite similar to the way the government handles standing in warrantless wiretap cases, with this shell game that requires someone to prove that they were the target of illegal surveillance before they have standing to sue over it — but they aren’t going to tell you that, so you can’t prove it. In this case, the court demands that the defendants prove the very thing they are requesting data to help them prove. Heads the government wins, tails you lose. Actually, we all lose. Our criminal justice system is broken from top to bottom.
I thought this was absolutely insane. The supreme court simply made it impossible to sue on the basis of racism under the 4th and 14th amendment unless the person can prove that someone was consciously racist against them. That is pretty much impossible to prove unless that person is stupid enough to use hate speech, and the victim cannot prove institutional racism because he has no standing to get the evidence! These rulings all happened under Rehnquist it seems, but I definitely do not think it is changing under Roberts thanks to his belief in color blindness as evidenced by his views on affirmative action.
I also did not realize the depth of the trap that ex-convicts were put in after they were released. I mean, I knew it was basically impossible for them to find a job and they can't vote, can't get public housing, food stamps, and other programs, but I did not realize all of the fees that ex-convicts get saddled with.
I mean, a person who pleads guilty to possession of crack get's 5-10 years in jail. If he has a kid that child support continues to accumulate while he is in jail. Moreover, he is charged, processing fees, probation fees, all of these various fees that could put him thousands of dollars in debt, not including the child support fees. Well, let say this dude miraculously finds a job. It is highly unlikely he is finding a job significantly higher than minimum wage. The problem is that by law the state can take away 60% of his paycheck for child support and 40% for criminal justice fees. If he fails to pay those fees his punishment could mean that his license would be revoked, which causes him to lose his job, and then probably means that he is sent back to jail because not being unemployed could be a violation of his parole!
I thought her segment on black culture was especially interesting since she links the rise of gangster rap to the drug war, and how embracing an maligned identity is a common human reaction. The problem with this identity is that it is obviously a negative one. This does not mean that there is no shame involved about prison or that prison is glorified. This is simply done because there is really no escaping the system when the police and criminal justice system are targeting to you and you basically have a 3 in 4 chance of becoming a part of that system. How else would you cope, but to pretend to embrace it? She basically calls out Obama and Cosby for blaming black men for being moral failures since they clearly do not properly understand the situation and are just looking for easy answers, and in this case harmful ones.
I have about 4 hours more to go, but man, I did not realize the depths of its cruelness, racism, and utter stupidity.
