Taya Flores

tflores@jconline.com

It's difficult to swallow — the idea that our government had a heavy hand in placing and keeping black men in prison.

I always thought criminals go to jail — good law-abiding citizens don't. But thinking about why there are so many incarcerated black men — young and old — makes me uncomfortable.

Perhaps it's the confluence of socioeconomic factors, such as poverty, lack of high-quality education and neighborhood violence.

Perhaps it's a lack of role models or people of color showing them that they too can succeed.

Perhaps it's the draw of quick money from selling drugs.

Michelle Alexander , a civil rights attorney and author of a best seller published in 2010, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness," throws out all those theories.

PART 2: 'The New Jim Crow': The price paid for blackness





PART 3: 'The New Jim Crow': Uncovering racial bias



With much research and legal insight, she strongly suggests that the Reagan administration did not create the war on drugs in the 1980s in response to an existing crack cocaine crisis but rather orchestrated the problem. She states the former president's declaration of the war on drugs preceded an actual crack problem in poor black neighborhoods and that a flood of crack quickly followed. Reagan's staff publicized the emergence of crack — inciting a media frenzy that reinforced the worst stereotypes about blacks in the inner city, according to Alexander.

She also contends that the same guerrilla armies that were actively supported by the Central Intelligence Agency in Nicaragua were also smuggling drugs into the United States. The CIA then turned a blind eye as it blocked law enforcement efforts to investigate illegal drug networks that were helping fund its covert war in Nicaragua — a detail the CIA admitted in 1998, she writes.

Moreover, she argues that rates of drug crimes cannot explain the racial disparities that exist in prison.

"Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. If there are significant differences in the surveys to be found, they frequently suggest that whites, particularly white youth, are more likely to engage in drug crime than people of color," she writes.

If this is the case, why are so many black men behind bars?

It's hard to understand, and I'm not the only one to think so.

I recently attended a small-group book discussion organized by Congress Street United Methodist Church and Greater Lighthouse Apostolic Church in Lafayette. The churches organized a six-week discussion series that takes place in living rooms and public lobbies all over the city.

I attended the first meeting last Monday and was the only black person in a group of fewer than 10 women. The other women were all white and varied in age.

We told our stories and listened to others.

They spoke of growing up sheltered in a white world.

I talked about growing up black in a white world.

They looked to me for answers.

I often did not have them.

They too struggled with accepting Alexander's arguments.

But the more I read her book, the more it makes sense.

If Alexander's arguments are true, it perplexes me that no one really cares.

Where's the media, civil rights groups or politicians?

Unfortunately, it seems that the only time race issues surface is when an interracial shooting occurs.

But what about all the black men behind bars, stripped of the right to vote and stamped with the legal OK to be discriminated against in housing, employment, education, public benefits — the list goes on.

This is the "New Jim Crow" Alexander writes about — a reincarnated era of racial discrimination I thought was over.

If you think these arguments sound like conspiracy theories or that black men simply earned their place in prison, I'd encourage you to read the book and start an intelligent conversation.

More next week

Reporter Taya Flores is participating in the "New Jim Crow" discussion series. She will write a column each week. Follow her @TayaMFlores on Twitter and check for future columns at jconline.com.