Jarvious Cotton's great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Klu Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation; his father was barred by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.

As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status--much like their grandparents before them.

In this incisive critique, former litigator-turned-legal-scholar Michelle Alexander provocatively argues that we have not ended racial caste in America: we have simply redesigned it. Alexander shows that, by targeting black men and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness. The New Jim Crow challenges the civil rights community--and all of us--to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America.

Jarvious Cotton的曾曾祖父作为奴隶不能投票。他的曾祖父因试图投票而被三K党殴打致死。他的祖父因三K党的恐吓而无法投票；他的父亲因人头税和识字考试而被禁止投票。今天，科顿不能投票，因为他和美国的许多黑人男子一样，被贴上了重罪犯的标签，目前正在假释中。

在美国庆祝巴拉克-奥巴马当选为国家 "战胜种族 "的时候，美国主要城市的大多数年轻黑人男子被关在监狱里，或被贴上终身重刑犯的标签。尽管吉姆-克罗法已被从书本上抹去，但美国黑人社区中仍有惊人比例的人陷于从属地位--就像他们之前的祖父母一样。

在这篇精辟的评论中，前诉讼律师转为法律学者的米歇尔-亚历山大挑衅性地认为，我们并没有结束美国的种族种姓：我们只是重新设计了它。亚历山大表明，通过针对黑人男子和消灭有色人种社区，美国刑事司法系统作为当代种族控制体系发挥作用，即使它在形式上坚持色盲的原则。新吉姆-克劳挑战民权团体--以及我们所有人--将大规模监禁置于美国种族正义新运动的最前沿。