Tomgram: Michelle Alexander, The Age of Obama as a Racial Nightmare

Prison Industry: More African American Slaves in the United States Today Than in 1850
*There are more African Americans under correctional control today -- in prison or jail, on probation or parole -- than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. *As of 2004, more African American men were disenfranchised (due to felon disenfranchisement laws) than in 1870, the year the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that explicitly deny the right to vote on the basis of race. * A black child born today is less likely to be raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery.
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