Tonight on Circle A Radio we take a look at mass incarceration and racism in America today through Michelle Alexander's book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness."

There is much discussion happening in our local community of the issues brought up in this book. We visited a Book Group at the Talking Drum Bookstore, located in Reflections coffee shop on NE Killingsworth. This group is going through the book in six weeks, chapter by chapter, to study how and why a majority of young Black men in major American cities are locked behind bars and how  the U.S. criminal justice system functions as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it formally adheres to the principle of color blindness.

We will hear a speech given by Michelle Alexander in New York in February, 2010, and we talk to members of the Book Club about how their personal experiences are reflected in the book, and why they are part of the Book Club.