This article tackles racial disparities from a very upstream perspective, and consequently, I would definitely recommend it to anyone studying disparities in health. This article is a review of Michelle Alexander's novel entitled "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindess". Though Jim Crow laws were abolished generations ago, Alexander posits that equality gains since the civil rights era have been overshadowed by the "mass incarceration of black Americans" in the drug trade. She explains that for decades, African Americans-- and young males in particular-- have been entrenched in both the United States' war on drugs and criminal system to such an extent that it has impeded African Americans from truly obtaining equality and the gains of civil rights. She informs us that there are more African Americans under correctional control today than there were enslaved prior to the Civil War. She argues that the federal government's approach to the war on drugs has been entirely ineffective, as it has perpetuated rather than abolished the trend of high African American imprisonment rates. Her article is thought-provoking, as it targets a broad issue (racial disparities) by critiquing a specific realm of society (crime and the prison system), and thus forcing readers to think about the issue from an upstream perspective. Again, I would definitely recommend this article to anyone examining health disparities in the U.S.