They just put a new night-light in front of my cell, (sic) I�ll be able to break up my days as I wish. Or not break them, - just keep on going. - Just keep going - straight ahead - right on.

-George Jackson, Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson

�I first encountered the idea of a new racial caste system more than a decade ago, when a bright orange poster caught my eye�� Stapled to a telephone pole, the poster read: THE DRUG WAR IS THE NEW JIM CROW. The reader, Michelle Alexander, skimmed the text on the poster. A �radical group� was holding a meeting on police brutality and the �new three-strikes law� in California at a community church. The church seated 50 people. Alexander �muttered�: �Yeah, the criminal justice system is racist in many ways, but it really doesn�t help to make such an absurd comparison.� She crossed the street and �hopped on the bus,� headed to her new job as director of the Racial Justice Project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Northern California.

Quite belatedly, I came to see that mass incarceration in the United States had, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.

�Since the War on Drugs began, federal and state agencies have not maintained accurate numbers of those incarcerated. But we do know that 2 million people are behind bars and 5 to 7 million are either on probation or on parole. Most of these incarcerated have been arrested for primarily non-violent drug offenses.

�Practices by the criminal justice system authorize racial discrimination. When white ex-convicts apply for jobs, they can pass by not checking the box on job applications. But with Blacks, the employer will likely run a check, even if the Black applicant didn�t check the box. White offenders tell me that they never check the box, and they are able to pass.

�The War on Drugs was launched in response to racial politics. Whites who felt threatened by the Civil Rights gains of Blacks pressured the government. Crime and welfare became the highly charged and not so subtle racial subjects of this discourse. The �get tough on crime� rhetoric made it possible for the South to turn from a Blue to Red states.

�Democrats were as responsible as the Republicans, however. Democrats competed with Republicans to see who could create the stiffest �get tough on crime� laws. [Former President Bill] Clinton did more than [Ronald] Reagan in this regard. His administration was responsible for many of the laws that banned ex-convicts from public housing for 5 years and banned them from food stamps for the rest of their lives.

�Yet, Clinton is triumphed as the �First Black President.� Clinton escalated the War on Drugs more than Republicans. African Americans have been complicit in our silence and shame.

�This [escalation of the War on Drugs] is also our fault. We tell ourselves that if only young Black people stop committing crimes, things would be different. There�s a level of shame in that Blacks don�t want to believe there�s a system in place against them.

�Drug laws are officially colorblind, so it�s easy for folks to say the laws are race neutral. It can�t be the laws, we think. But during Jim Crow, some of the laws were race neutral on their face. Yet, literacy tests and poll taxes were enforced in a racially discriminatory manner. Similarly, drug laws are enforced in a racially discriminatory manner. The severity of the desperate treatment between white drug offenders and black drug offenders can�t be denied. The drug war was declared with Black folks in mind. White drug offenders are collateral damage as a result of the War on Drugs.

�It�s a huge mistake to think that Black youth are not stigmatized by the drug war because they seem to be embracing the drug culture. Studies have shown that groups horribly stigmatized often embrace the stigma. The stigma of Blackness becomes an embrace of Blackness: Black is beautiful! Today, Black youth embracing gangsta culture are stigmatized. The Gangsta stigma isn�t positive or constructive, and it leads to no good.

�Instead we have the music industry, for example, that won�t produce positive images of Black people. They invest in music with lyrics that stigmatize Blacks for a white audience.

�These youth experience high unemployment, and they have few examples of positive role models. They should rebel; but they need examples of freedom fighters in our communities.�

�A flawed public consensus - not merely flawed policy - [is] at the root of racial oppression,� writes Alexander in The New Jim Crow. It is not enough for advocates challenging mass incarceration to win an isolated victory or to win a series of victories. In the absence of �a fundamental shift in public consciousness, the system as a whole will remain intact.� It will simply �reemerge in a new form, just as convict leasing replaced slavery, or it will be reborn, just as mass incarceration replaced Jim Crow.�

�I read Gates� article a couple of times. Didn�t understand what point he was trying to make. It�s no secret that Africans were involved in the slave trade. I don�t see how that changes the responsibility for slavery [in the New World].

�On the other hand, I don�t think monetary awards for slavery is the answer. That would assume that slavery ended when, in fact, slavery continued and continues in new forms.�

�I visited Monroe Correctional Complex to attend the Black prisoners� caucus. It was a wonderful experience. The Black prisoners� caucus has been in existence for several decades and led by well informed and active prisoners. The caucus sponsors speakers to the prison.

�Many of these activist-prisoners were 3-strikers, serving life sentences. I was horrified by many of the stories I heard there. I meet a man serving a life sentence for �stealing� 50 dollars and shoving someone. This is someone who wanted to eat! I met another person, incarcerated at age 13 years old, who is serving a life sentence.

�Although these prisoners have no reason to hope that they would ever come out, they are committed to the younger inmates. These prisoners see themselves as having a meaningful role to play. How much more committed they are for taking responsibility for others. These prisoners are committed to making a positive difference.�