In her book, The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander put the reader in the middle of a fierce debate about racial oppression in the current United States. Through her explosive style of writing, she depicts a view of the United States incarceration system both objectively and through the eyes of regular people who she argues are beset by the system. Alexander’s dramatic use of language and rhetorical appeals displays to the reader what the prison system is like to the African-American population in the United States. On pages 140 and 141 in The New Jim Crow Alexander displays both of her writing techniques that draw the reader into argument. Alexander begins these pages with an epigraph of a quote by Fredrick Douglass. Douglass was a well-known abolitionist and an escaped slave. Although he was brought us through the institution, he was still …show more content…
She describes very blatantly and straightforward the treatment of criminals once they are released from prison. She argues that we treat criminals like they truly are lower than the rest of society; less than human. She then returns to her parallel of slavery. She returns to the major argument of the book by drawing a very clear parallel. She says, “Hundreds of years ago, our nation put those considered less than human in shackles; less than a hundred years ago, we relegated them to the other side of town; today we put them in cages” (141). Here Alexander makes a very clear, dramatic, shocking point. Her connection here is supposed to stun the reader; she’s aiming for shock value. She also returns to another strategy that she uses throughout her book by describing a habit that the reader may commonly do. She points out how the phrase “being treated like a criminal” implies being treated less than human. She uses the stereotypes found throughout the United States as evidence of her
Most black Americans are under the control of the criminal justice today whether in parole or probation or whether in jail or prison. Accomplishments of the civil rights association have been challenged by mass incarceration of the African Americans in fighting drugs in the country. Although the Jim Crow laws are not so common, many African Americans are still arrested for very minor crimes. They remain disfranchised and marginalized and trapped by criminal justice that has named them felons and refuted them their rights to be free of lawful employment and discrimination and also education and other public benefits that other citizens enjoy. There is exists discernment in voting rights, employment, education and housing when it comes to privileges. In the, ‘the new Jim crow’ mass incarceration has been described to serve the same function as the post civil war Jim crow laws and pre civil war slavery. (Michelle 16) This essay would defend Michelle Alexander’s argument that mass incarcerations represent the ‘new Jim crow.’
Frederick Douglass, an African American social reformer who escaped from slavery, in his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself,” denotes the perilous life of a slave in the South. Through syntax, Douglass is able to persuade his readers to support the abolitionist movement as his writing transitions from shifting sentence lengths to parallel structure and finally to varying uses of punctuation. Douglass begins his memoir with a combination of long and short sentences that serve to effectively depict life his life as a slave. This depiction is significant because it illustrates the treatment of slaves in the south allows his audience to despise the horrors of slavery. In addition, this
After suffering the overwhelming ferociousness and inhumanity of being a slave for over two decades , a black man by the name of Fredrick Douglass fled from enslavement and began to make a concerted effort to advance himself as a human being. Combating many obstacles and resisting numerous temptations, Douglass worked assiduously to develop into a knowledgeable gentleman rather than the involuntary alternative of being an unenlightened slave. In doing so, Douglass successfully immerged as one of the Civil War era’s most prominent antislavery orators. From his first major public speech at the age of 23, Douglass became widely renowned as a premier spokesperson for Black slaves and the movement for the abolition of slavery. In one of Douglass’ most distinguished speeches, “The Meaning of July 4th for the Negro,” he uses the intermittent occasion of speaking on behalf of African Americans to a multitude of White Americans to outline arguments against slavery. In that very speech, Douglass made it clear that, like countless African Americans during this time period,
Michelle Alexander in her book "The New Jim Crow" argues that Mass Incarceration is similar to Jim Crow; Alexander believes that caste systems such as Jim Crow and slavery are similar to the existing system of mass incarceration. In addition, Alexander accuses the U.S. criminal justice system, implying their laws undividedly target African Americans through the War on Drugs and racial limitation. In comparing mass incarceration with Jim Crow, Alexander points to compelling parallels regarding political disenfranchisement, legalized discrimination, and symbolic production of a race. Alexander, moreover, effectively offers a rebuttal to the counterargument that the New Jim Crow does not carry the same level of racial hostility as the Old Jim
Lappin, H. G., & Greene, J. (2006). Are prisons just? In C. Hanrahan (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: America’s prisons (pp. 51-98). Detroit: Bonnie Szumski.
Print. The. Alexander, Michelle. A. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
In President Lyndon Johnson's speech in respone to the CIvil Rights Act of 1964. He is a great speaker in terms of how he presents his speech to the people. As the speaker he also integrates a traditional speech going back to the values of the Founders. I think he made the piece a success by the way he explains to the public how he is going to implement the law and how we as americans should have embraced the law.
According to statistics since the early 1970’s there has been a 500% increase in the number of people being incarcerated with an average total of 2.2 million people behind bars. The increase in rate of people being incarcerated has also brought about an increasingly disproportionate racial composition. The jails and prisons have a high rate of African Americans incarcerated with an average of 900,000 out of the 2.2 million incarcerateed being African American. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics 1 in 6 African American males has been incarcerated at some point in time as of the year 2001. In theory if this trend continues it is estimated that about 1 in 3 black males being born can be expected to spend time in prison and some point in his life. One in nine African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 are currently incarcerated. Although the rate of imprisonment for women is considerably lower than males African American women are incarc...
In the United States, the rate of incarceration has increased shockingly over the past few years. In 2008, it was said that one in 100 U.S. adults were behind bars, meaning more than 2.3 million people. Even more surprising than this high rate is the fact that African Americans have been disproportionately incarcerated, especially low-income and lowly educated blacks. This is racialized mass incarceration. There are a few reasons why racialized mass incarceration occurs and how it negatively affects poor black communities.
In 13th, Michelle Alexander indicates that she believes that features of the former Jim Crow laws abruptly become lawful when a person of color is named a convict. When one is named a convict, they often lose rights similar to that of the right to vote, bear arms, and serve on a jury. Alexander ties these rights taken from current felons to rights taken from slaves in the time of the Jim Crow laws. In Alexander’s view, one might reason that the Jim Crow laws were simply a replacement for slavery in the same way that imprisonment of colored people is currently a replacement for the previous Jim Crow laws. Glenn Martin states in 13th that “Systems of oppression are durable, and they tend to reinvent themselves.” This statement supports Alexander’s thoughts on how features of Jim Crow laws are used currently. The essence of Alexander and Martin’s argument is that laws are being manipulated by being given a different name to make seem them more appealing to the white, American
Have you ever been hungry? That is my question to everyone and anyone it is probably the worst feeling that anyone could ever have in the world. And luckily if you haven't then Richard Wright wrote a novel and in that novel there are detailed feels and mixed emotions of what it feels like to have real hunger that you live with everyday of your life and you can not control. Richard Wright wrote a novel called “Black Boy” about Richard a young boy that is just starting to realize what world he has been living in and what he is living in that moment. It is wonderful to read this novel and see how this child that knows absolutely nothing about his own society get to be one of many young people that have tried to change that. In his novel
Racial discrimination is one of the most controversial problems in our society. It is difficult to realize that segregation and stigma of race are still highly alive, and the book “ The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander is a great example of this ideology. In the book the author demonstrates how America has set up a new direction to continue the marginalization of black by using the criminal justice system as well as how “Drug on War” has become a tool of racial segregation that overwhelmingly brought a negative effect on its black population.
The New Jim Crow is a wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable. This book is a genuine resurrection of the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. amid the confusion of the Age of Obama. The Age of Obama is a time of historic breakthroughs at the level of symbols and political surfaces. Alexander’s subtle analysis shifts our attention from the racial symbol of America’s achievement to the actual substance of American’s shame and the massive use of state power to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of poor black males and females in the name of the bogus “war on drugs.’ Alexander takes us through the historical narrative tracing the unconscionable treatment and brutal control of black people from slavery
As a relatively young man, Frederick Douglass discovers, in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, that learning to read and write can be his path to freedom. Upon discovering that...
The most problematic conclusion about Mass Incarceration, whatever the causes or practices, is that currently America has had the highest national prison rates in the world; furthermore, the rates of minorities (particularly African Americans) are extraordinarily disproportionate to the rates of incarcerated Caucasians. Despite the overall rise in incarceration rates since the 1980s, the crime rates have not been reduced as would be expected. Researchers, activists, and politicians alike are now taking a closer look at Mass Incarceration and how it affects society on a larger scale. The purpose of this paper is to examine the anatomy of Mass Incarceration for a better understanding of its importance as a dominant social issue and its ultimate relation to practice of social work. More specifically the populations affected by mass incarceration and the consequences implacable to social justice. The context of historical perspectives on mass incarceration will be analyzed as well as insight to the current social welfare policies on the