A Call to Consciousness: Examining the Evolution of America's Racial Caste System

• Author: Erica R. Hilliard,Aaron C. Rollins
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12744
• Published date: 01 March 2017
• Date: 01 March 2017

Book Reviews 259

Erica R. Hilliard is a career public

servant. She serves as an advocate for

victim’s right as an Assistant United States

Attorney for the Southern District of

Alabama. Upon earning her Juris Doctorate

from the University of Mississippi, she

served as a clerk for the Honorable United

States Magistrate Judge Sonja F. Bivins

and later for the Honorable United States

District Court Judge Ginny V. S. Grenade.

E-mail: erica.rollins.hilliard@gmail.com

Aaron C. Rollins, Jr., is an advocate,

scholar, and a catalyst for positive change.

He is assistant professor of Urban and

Public Affairs at the University of Louisville.

His work and research focuses on issues

pertaining to cultural competency,

performance management, public

administration, social equity, organizational

effectiveness, education policy, and

the politics of race with a focus on

disadvantaged and marginalized citizens.

E-mail: aaron.rollins@louisville.edu

Michelle Alexander , The New Jim Crow: Mass

Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness ( New

York : The New Press , 2012 ). 336 pp. $27.95 (cloth),

ISBN: 9781595581037; $19.95 (paperback), ISBN:

9781595586438.

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the

Age of Colorblindness is a timely work that

appeals to the consciousness of America by

forcing the reader to critically examine the United

States’ role in a biased criminal justice system that

specifically targets poor people of color. It requires

an introspective examination of our personal

contribution to the perpetuation of the modern

racial caste system. Alexander ’ s plea is similar to Dr.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ( 1963 ) in his Letter From

Birmingham Jail in that she recognizes there are some

ill-intentioned individuals who, while they no longer

wear hoods to extract their terror, are responsible for

many of the laws and policies causing great harm

to poor people of color. She appeals to the core of

our basic humanity and challenges us to remove our

blinders, acknowledge the sources of these injustices,

and join in the fight to rectify them.

Alexander ’ s plea of fighting injustice is not

unfounded in public administration literature.

George Frederickson ( 2012 ) echoed these sentiments

decades earlier: “A Public Administration which

fails to work for changes which try to redress the

deprivation of minorities will likely be eventually

used to repress those minorities” (294). He, along

with other members of the inaugural Minnowbrook

conference, introduced New Public Administration

during a time of turmoil in America. “The new public

administration was a call for relevance, which at the

time meant responsiveness to the pressing issues of the

day—poverty, racial injustice, the Vietnam War…”

(Frederickson 1996 , 265). Frederickson ( 1996 )

continues, “Much of the new public administration is

tied to an elevated conception of citizenship, a vision

of the informed, active citizen participating ‘beyond

the ballot box’ in a range of public activities…” (256).

Alexander urges the reader to adopt this elevated

conception of citizenship; she proclaims, “No task is

more urgent for racial justice advocates today than

ensuring that America ’ s current racial caste system is

its last” (258).

Much like the ending of the Civil War and the

signings of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965

Voting Rights Act, the election of the nation ’ s first

black President signified a new era of progress for the

United States of America. To some, Barack Obama

becoming president meant America has finally realized

an Era of Colorblindness . De jure segregation has been

struck down, affirmative action and other programs

offer opportunities to women and people of color,

and there are countless examples of minority success

stories. More significantly, America ’ s youth can now

actually visualize a reality that was once only a dream

for previous generations—a black person can become

the president of the United States of America. These

realities and possibilities fuel the argument that

America has achieved colorblindness and all of her

citizens can fully self-actualize.

Historically, following each era of progress for

minorities, particularly African Americans, is a

subsequent era of marginalization, manipulation, and

exploitation. Alexander notes that “[t]his process,

though difficult to recognize at any given moment,

is easier to see in retrospect. Since the nation’s

founding, African Americans repeatedly have been

controlled through institutions such as slavery and

Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn

in a new form, tailored to the needs and constraints

of the time” (21). Unfortunately, the aforementioned

colorblind era is not immune from this cycle.

Alexander proclaims that just a decade or so prior

to writing this book, even she would have argued

against the notion that there is an ongoing racial

caste system operating in America. However,

her research, coupled with her work at the

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), soon

Danny L. Balfour , Editor

Aaron C. Rollins , Jr.

University of Louisville

Erica R. Hilliard

U.S. Department of Justice

A Call to Consciousness:

Examining the Evolution of America ’ s Racial Caste System

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 77, Iss. 2, pp. 259–262. © 2017 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.12744.