The statement suggests that despite laws being officially designed without racial bias, they often end up disproportionately affecting people of certain races. This means that even though rules are supposed to be applied equally to everyone, their actual implementation can lead to unfair treatment for particular groups.
Digging deeper into this idea reveals a complex interplay between law and societal structures. Michelle Alexander highlights how legal systems that claim neutrality can still perpetuate racial disparities by targeting communities of color more heavily through enforcement practices or sentencing guidelines. For example, laws against drug use may be enforced in predominantly Black neighborhoods at higher rates than elsewhere, leading to significantly higher incarceration rates for African Americans compared to other races. This discrepancy underscores the notion that although written policies might be race-neutral, their application can inadvertently—or sometimes deliberately—discriminate based on racial lines.
Michelle Alexander is an American civil rights lawyer and legal scholar known for her work addressing mass incarceration in the United States and its disproportionate impact on communities of color. Her influential book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" explores how current criminal justice policies have created a system that mirrors historical racial discrimination, effectively creating new barriers to equality and social mobility for minority groups.
