Zócalo Public Square

Americans celebrated the election of Barack Obama as a “triumph over race.” But in major U.S. cities today, the majority of young black men are locked behind bars or labeled felons for life. Jim Crow laws may have been wiped off the books decades ago, but an astounding number of African Americans today, much like their grandparents before them, are trapped in a permanent second-class status — unable to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education, and public benefits. Is a new Jim Crow system emerging and thriving in the age of Obama? Scholar and activist Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, visited Zócalo to explain what she calls our new racial caste system.