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Organizing Benefit for 3-Strikes Reform

Rainier Valley Cultural Center
Seattle, WA

Legal scholar Michelle Alexander, on national book tour, keynotes in a benefit for the campaign to reform Washington's 3-Strikes law.

In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, February 2010), Professor Alexander traces the rebirth of the racial caste system through mass incarceration

She calls on social justice activists to resist the temptation to practice "colorblind" advocacy.

Campaigns for specific reforms, if they are to achieve lasting change Alexander argues, must contribute to the building of a movement to dismantle the system of mass incarceration. To do that, we must build a "durable, interracial, bottom-up coalition for social and economic justice". And we must meaningfully address the racial tensions and divisions that gave rise to mass incarceration and cultivate an ethic of genuine care, compassion, and concern for every human being - of every class, race, and nationality.

The evening begins with remarks by Senator Adam Kline, one of nearly 40 sponsors of 3-Strikes reform legislation over the last decade and the most consistent champion of this reform. Former 3-Strikers Vance Bartley and Stevan Dozier, who served under 3-Strikes for over a decade, also speak. A book signing and organizing session conclude the evening.

Presented by Justice Works! Co-sponsored by ACLU Washington; Black Prisoner's Caucus; Coalition of Anti-Racist Whites; Concerned Lifers Organization; Friends Committee on Washington Public Policy (Quakers); Hotel Max Seattle; SEEDArts, a Program of SEED; S.T.E.P.S: Steps to Ethically Profiling Stability; University Behind Bars; Washington Defender Association; Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation

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