Part I. This book brings up a lot of important issues but I think that the main themes are the failure of colour-blindness, jobs/economy and problems with law enforcement. In this book Michelle Alexander discuss the mass incarceration of black in America and the reason for why blacks are the most incarcerated group in America. In America there is this notion of colour-blindness, that colour is not of importance anymore because we are all treated equally as stated in the Declaration of Independence. The problem with this kind of thinking is that it completely contradicts the actual reality for many black people and it disguises the new racial caste system that exists. The idea that people of colour are treated exactly the same as whites is …show more content…
Michelle Alexander also brings to attention the hardship that these arrests bring onto people of colour after finishing their sentences. After the release from jail these people are faced with a total isolation from society, they can’t get jobs and therefore are forced into poverty. They are legally discriminated from housing, jobs, education, food stamps etc. Their lives are forever changed. Ex-offenders are constantly facing a legal discrimination upon their release, and Alexander compares this to the legal discrimination during Jim Crow. One of the main problems with the law enforcement according to Alexander is that they have locked this racial group into and inferior position in …show more content…
One thing that I found very interesting is how Alexander talks about ex-offenders. Often when you think of an offender you don’t really feel sorry for them or think of them as if they might be facing hardship upon their release. However, Alexander presents an interesting perspective when she compares the legal discrimination of ex-offenders to that of Jim Crow. It might not be as explicit but it is clear that they are discriminated, and it is legal. I completely agree with this, I think that after serving a sentence and getting back into society there one is faced by a great number of obstacles. You can’t get housing or a job with a criminal record making it very hard for an ex-offender to settle in society after serving time. Another thing I found interesting was how she talks about the fact that the election of Barack Obama in 2008, which gave the United States its first African American president, somehow made people think that racism didn’t exist anymore. People often argue that how can we live in a racist society when we have a black president? What needs to be understood according to Alexander is that blacks can be successful, but that still doesn’t erase the fact that blacks stand for the majority of incarcerated people in this country. It think this is a very important point that unfortunately is very true. A lot of people live in denial over the fact that racism is still an ongoing issue in this country, all over the world matter a fact. I believe that the
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that works together –almost invisible– to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined by race, African American (p. 178 -190).
There are always certain social problems that take part in our communities. Some of us may not experience it first hand, but all of us should acknowledge the fact that our greatest social problem is still looming till this day. In Michelle Alexander 's work, Drug War Nightmare: How We Created a Massive Racial Caste System in America, she talks about the social problem of inequality and discrimination in America. From being an African American to being a law professor and experience as a clerk for a Supreme Court justice, so it can give a reader a sense of comfort knowing that she knows what she is talking about. Alexander uses several methods of using logical and emotional appeals to the readers so they can get a glimpse of this national issue. She points out that there is a "New Jim Crow system" in the country that discriminates minorities in the legal system today and how it is a real problem that has a huge impact on American citizen 's lives.
Alexander attempts to show by means of cultural and historical review, political decisions, enactment of legislation and statistical evidence from the time of the old Jim Crow laws, the retarded advancement of civil rights of young black men, and their mass incarceration. This occurrence produces a false reality and perpetuates the history of racial discrimination that exists today in America through a "caste system" by legal framework that disguising itself as the "War on Drugs." The practice of mass incarceration labels and demonizes those persons to the point that they lose their rights to vote, limits employment, are denied housing and educatio...
In her book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander states that we still use our criminal justice system to “label people of color ‘criminals’ and then engage i...
The majority of our prison population is made up of African Americans of low social and economic classes, who come from low income houses and have low levels of education. The chapter also discusses the amount of money the United States loses yearly due to white collar crime as compared to the cost of violent crime. Another main point was the factors that make it more likely for a poor person to be incarcerated, such as the difficulty they would have in accessing adequate legal counsel and their inability to pay bail. This chapter addresses the inequality of sentencing in regards to race, it supplies us with NCVS data that shows less than one-fourth of assailants are perceived as black even though they are arrested at a much higher rate. In addition to African Americans being more likely to be charged with a crime, they are also more likely to receive harsher punishments for the same crimes- which can be seen in the crack/cocaine disparities. These harsher punishments are also shown in the higher rates of African Americans sentenced to
“Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. This is what it means to be black” (Alexander 197). Today our nation represents an interracial racial caste system - a caste system that includes white people within its control as a means to remain a colorblind system. Mass incarceration is no different than slavery or Jim Crow, it is simply a new racial caste system in the age of colorblindness (Alexander
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is a thorough and thought provoking analysis of mass incarceration in America. Through this book Alexander explores the dynamics of the criminal justice system and the propaganda that enables it which have led to the establishment and maintenance of a racial undercaste system that has been perpetuated by a felony criminal record. Within this book Alexander provides a history of the disenfranchisement of the black male from the overt racism of slavery and Jim Crow to the colorblind drug and sentencing policies of the 20th and 21st century.
From the study, Michelle Alexander’s argument is true and correct that the mass incarcerations are just a representation of Jim Crow. The Jim Crow has just been redesigned as the blacks have continued to be mistreated and denied some of the rights and privileges that their counterparts enjoy. There is discernment against the African Americans towards different privileges which are essential to their lives. This discrimination is political as leaders steer operations that are aimed at racially discriminating people from particular groups of race.
Michelle Alexander asserts that mass incarceration in contemporary American society is the result of targeting African Americans in the “War on Drugs” and serves to maintain a racial caste system similar to the system that existed during pre-Civil War slavery and has been propelled by what Michael Cohen calls “Jim Crow political logic” of Southern
Print. The. Alexander, Michelle. A. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
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...
The black woman in the U.S. holds a precarious role: she is a woman, she is black and she is quickly becoming the dominant force of her people. The black woman is increasingly the sole bread winner in her household because she is forced into that position because of the...
I’ve learned to understand the policy of our criminal system and why the rules are the way they are, and I also learned about the underlying racism that comes with mass incarceration and how our criminal system today reflects that of Jim crow. A major thing that I’ve taken from being an African American and seeing everyone I know fall victim to the cycle of mass incarceration, is that you must decide not to become a statistic, you must decide not to become like the people who you are surrounded with. I think there is some justice in some of the policy’s we have when dealing with mass incarceration, but I ultimately think that officials should take into mind the lifestyle that most African Americans are brought up in. The media does a great job in portraying the rough lifestyle of the average day criminal but what it doesn’t do a great job in is underlying the amount of discrimination African American face daily and how that affects them. From experience, I’ve concluded that as African Americans we experience a different America than whites. The officials who make the policies will never know what it’s like to walk into a job and be discriminated against because of your color, or the feeling of walking down the street in a white neighborhood and be stopped just because you’re black. The system that we are brought up in has never been in the favor of African Americans, these hardship is no excuse for committing crimes but these hardships
During the segment, Michelle Alexander; had discussed her life of being a black female who is penitentiary abolitionist. She later went into the ins and outs of the difference between being white and black in the criminal justice system. For instance, she talks about the agenda push of putting all drug offenders in jail. It then later got discredited to repeal drug users, by trying not to get a marijuana user sentenced. This new repeal of legalizing weed, she insisted was because of the whites, and their association with hippies that it would later get its legalizing petition. Meanwhile for today’s society it is greatly still drugged based. Then, she talks about how the predominant culture new drug opium is getting an advisor to help people who have an addiction. She states, how all these
Have you ever walked into a Starbucks and within two minutes of sitting the police escorts you out for no decent reason? Can you envision being killed holding a cellular device the cops "feared their lives over"? Imagine walking home This terror and anxiety occur every day for African Americans. An individual is to believe the Justice System purpose is to "deliver justice for all, by convicting and punishing the guilty and helping them to stop offending, while protecting the innocent," nonetheless with the lack of acceptance because the color of their skin it is hard to come to be by without looking over your shoulder. This lack of acceptance creates burdens of oppression and discrimination. "Oppression and discrimination are closely related,