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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Michelle Alexander: "Zimmerman Mindset" Endangers Young Black Lives With Poverty, Prison & Murder


"Justice for Trayvon" protests are planned in more than 100 cities this weekend as activists seek federal charges against George Zimmerman and the repeal of "Stand Your Ground" laws in Florida and dozens of other states. We speak with Michelle Alexander, a law professor at Ohio State University and author of the best-selling book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." Alexander says the biases that led to Martin's death and let his killer go free are deeply embedded in U.S. society and in the criminal justice system itself: 

"The [Zimmerman mindset] that views black men and boys as a perpetual problem to be dealt with has infected our criminal justice system, infected our schools, has infected our politics in ways that have had disastrous consequences, birthing a prison system unprecedented in world history, and stripping millions of people of basic civil and human rights once they have been branded criminals and felons. It's this mindset that some of us defined largely by race and class are unworthy of our basic care and concern and to be dealt with harshly, written off with impunity."

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