Newtown Quakers to Host Discussion on The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

On Friday, March 13, 2015, at 6 p.m., Newtown Quaker Meetinghouse, 219 Court Street, there will be an interactive discussion session on the best-selling book, The New Jim Crow, a passionate analysis of mass incarceration and how it perpetuates a racial caste system in the United States.

The New York Review of Books says about the book, “Now and then a book comes along that might in time touch the public and educate social commentators, policymakers, and politicians about a glaring wrong that we have been living with that we also somehow don’t know how to face. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander is such a work”

And, on January 12, 2015, The Drug Policy Alliance issued a report which stated: “With less than 5 percent of the world’s population but nearly 25 percent of its incarcerated population, the United States imprisons more people than any other nation in the world – largely due to the war on drugs. Misguided drug laws and draconian sentencing requirements have produced profoundly unequal outcomes for communities of color. Although rates of drug use and selling are comparable across racial and ethnic lines, blacks and Latinos are far more likely to be criminalized for drug law violations than whites.”

The discussion moderators at the Newtown Quaker Meetinghouse will be Dr. Joe Hulihan and businessman Rich Richardson, both of Newtown.

Joe Hulihan said, “Everyone is welcome. Please join us on Friday, March 13, 6 p.m. at the Newtown Meetinghouse to engage in a review of this groundbreaking and important book and discuss what action we, as citizens, should consider to correct the current untenable situation.”