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Black support for "get tough" policies.
Alexander points out that one of the big differences between Jim Crow and mass incarceration is that many African Americans seem to be supportive of the current system of control, which was not the case about Jim Crow. However, she also argues that African Americans do not actually "support" mass incarceration or get tough policies, but that they comply with them. Alexander describes this as "complicity for mass incarceration." To comply with something is to conform, obey, or abide it. It does not mean support. Alexander explains that if the only options given to African Americans is widespread crime or more prisons, the obvious choice here would be more prisons. For example, back during the Jim Crow system, those who resisted and ignored the rules of the system risked the terror of the Klan. Complying with the system was a safer alternative at the time but was not support of racial oppression. Complicity with mass incarceration and the get tough policies is cooperation, not support.

Alexander also discusses the poverty complex in this section. The best way to understand the poverty complex is this example that Alexander gives: "Who is more blameworthy: the young black kid who hustles on the street corner, selling weed to help his momma pay the rent? Or the college kid who deals drugs out of his dorm room so that he'll have cash to finance his spring break? Who should we fear? The kid in the hood who joined a gang and now carries a gun for security because his neighborhood is frightening and unsafe? Or the suburban high school student who has a drinking problem but keeps getting behind the wheel?" She discusses how white children who make the same kinds of choices as poor African Americans, for worse reasons, are still able to have a future, while the poor are not. She believes the system is so racially biased and ignores the fact that many people break the law at some point, but do not face the consequences as bad as lower class African Americans. She states that racial ideology has birthed mass incarceration

Fork in the Road
This section discusses the chances our nation had to make changes in the right direction but failed to. Historian Lerone Benett Jr. stated that "a nation is a choice." Alexander writes that we could choose to be a nation full of compassion and concern, especially to those headed for prison. From the 1970's to the 1980's unemployment rates had increased severely (way more for African Americans) and inner city economies were collapsing. Alexander explains how there could have been so much done to change this. Education, job training, support, and a war on poverty could have helped our nation so much. Instead, Alexander states, a War on Drugs was chosen.

In this section Alexander talks about exploitation vs marginalization. She starts off by going through the evolution on caste systems through the eras. The United States started with a racial caste system that was solely exploitation, aka slavery. After that, during the Jim Crow era, it changed to subordination. Now, mass incarceration, is strictly marginalization. It may seem like progress has been made, but legal scholar John A. Powell disagrees. He says, "It's actually better to be exploited than marginalized, in some respects, because if you're exploited presumably you're still needed." Alexander continues on this thought explaining how marginalization creates the risk of extermination. A well known example of this would be the Holocaust in Germany.

About the Author
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. In 2005, she won a Soros Justice Fellowship that supported the writing of her first and only book, The New Jim Crow. She served as the director of the racial justice project for the ACLU of northern California, and launched a national campaign against racial profiling. She graduated from Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. Alexander is currently an associate professor of law at Ohio State University and spends a lot of her time public speaking, freelance writing, and supporting groups and organizations engaged in ending mass incarceration.

Politics of Respectability
Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham describes the politics of respectability as, "A politics that was born in the 19th century and matured in the Jim Crow era." The idea was that racial equality would only be achieved if African Americans could finally prove to whites that they are worth being treated the same as whites. They had to prove that they deserved the same treatment, dignity, and respect that whites did. Alexander explained that they must live by and aspire to the same morel codes as the white, even though they were still being discriminated against. Since the African Americans had no vote or say, they could not attempt to change this policy. They had no choice but to cooperate with the caste system that is wrongly discriminating against them all while conducting themselves in a respectable manner.

Dual Frustration
Alexander explains how dual frustration is intense in ghetto communities regarding crime and law enforcement. She says, "Throughout the black community, there is widespread awareness that black ghetto youth have few, if any, realistic options, and therefore dealing drugs can be an irresistible temptation. Suburban white youth may deal drugs to their friends and acquaintances as a form of recreation and extra cash, but for ghetto youth, drug sales are often a means of survival. ..The fact that this career path leads them almost inevitably to jail is often understood as an unfortunate fact of life, part of what it means to be poor and black in America."