Reading and Questions

Section1: Alexander Chapter 6

Link: https://peacelawandjustice.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/newjimcrow-ch-1.pdf

• Describe the experience of the Jena 6: who, what, when, where. How was the case eventually adjudicated?

• By and large, what has been the attitude of the civil rights community on the War on Drugs?

• What one area of criminal justice has most been the focus of civil rights lawyers?

• Why was Rosa Parks chosen to be the symbol of courage by not giving up her seat on the bus?

• Who were Claudette Colvin and Mary Louise Smith? Why were they not chosen to represent the bus boycotters?

• Why does Alexander include these examples (Parks, Colvin, Smith) in her discussion of criminal advocacy?

• Do poverty and unemployment statistics include people behind bars?

• On what basis does Bruce Western argue that it is “pure fiction” that the Clinton years were good for African Americans?

• What is the Corrections Corporation of America?

• Besides for-profit prisons, name at least three “prison profiteers.”

• Does mass incarceration contribute substantially to lower crime rates?

• What did California’s Proposition 36 mandate?

• What is colorblindness and why is it problematic as an approach to the War on Drugs?

• What is California’s Proposition 54 (endnote #34). Did it pass or fail?

• Why does the author consider affirmative action as a “racial bribe”?

• What are the four threats to the declining circumstances of white men in the U.S.? Hint: one is NOT affirmative action.

• Does the presence of people of color as workers in the criminal justice make a difference in light of all the problems discussed in the book? Why or why not?

• Has President Obama’s administration made things worse or better? How does Alexander support this answer?

• Who said, “Look, you know, when I was a kid, I inhaled. Frequently. That was the point”?

• Which writer said to his nephew, “this is your home…do not be driven from it. …we can make America what it must become”?

Section2: Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Link: http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

• • Who is the author

  • To whom was the letter directed?

  • What did St. Augustine say about an unjust law?

  • Who was Albert Boutwell? Bull Connor?

  • Which U.S. Constitutional Amendment guarantees peaceful assembly?

Section 3: Antiracist Activism

Link:

https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Antiracist_Activism_for_Teachers_and_Students/White_Activists/Activists

• What is the name of Beverly Tatum’s 1997 book?

• What is Tatum’s definition of “antiracist activism” using the metaphor of the conveyor belt?

• Is there such a thing as passive antiracism? Why or why not?

• Describe who each of these antiracist activists are and what they did to end racism.

  • Margaret Burnham

  • Terry Davis

  • Dr. Martin Nathan

  • Dr. James Cameron

  • Dr. Beverly Tatum

  • Timothy Jacob Wise