CFI-NYC Social Justice Book Club

The tools to make real change! The Social Justice Book Club aims to provide the background reading to progressive secular activism and expand the literary horizons of those interested in the diverse world of marginalized voices. Whether the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and religion is a little new to you or already fires up the passionate activist within, join us for some insightful literature and lively discussion Buy your book TODAY!

(Please make sure to read the selection before attending a discussion. Due to the nature of the subject matter, it's important that conversations don't get derailed due to a lack of direct knowledge of the text being discussed. Thank you!)

The next selection is Michelle Alexander's 'The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness'

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From the back cover:

Once in a great while a book comes along that changes the way we see the world and helps to fuel a nationwide social movement. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. With dazzling candor, legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues that "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." By targeting black men through the War on Drugs and decimating communities of color, the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control—relegating millions to a permanent second-class status—even as it formally adheres to the principle of colorblindness. In the words of Benjamin Todd Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, this book is a "call to action."

Called "stunning" by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian David Levering Lewis, "invaluable" by the Daily Kos, "explosive" by Kirkus, and "profoundly necessary" by the Miami Herald, this updated and revised paperback edition of The New Jim Crow, now with a foreword by Cornel West, is a must-read for all people of conscience.