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Racism in the justice system united states
Racial segregation in united states
Racial segregation in united states
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No one really likes to think back to the time of segregation and separation. Yet, any time Jim Crow is mentioned that what it takes us back to the time in which the laws were made and enforced. Those laws and what they symbolized is so synonymous what the 50’s that it’s hard for me to think that in this time and age that we would have something similar going on. In the article Michelle Alexander says she believes the criminal justice system of today has created a new form Jim Crow law. She says that with the war on drugs that began in the 1980’s and 1990’s we now have mass incarcerations. She says like the Jim Crow laws long such gone away, we now have the incarcerations of black people is today’s segregation and separation. She states that in the …show more content…
criminal law system has created racial and social control. I definitely see her point of view although I can say I don’t agree with her view one hundred percent. In both readings we see the all-out war on crime and drugs. America had had enough and were on the warpath to reduce the drug related violence in its streets. The “Just say no” campaign began at this time making it a point to the children that drugs weren’t the right choice for their lives. Michelle Alexander says that the prison system got it wrong though, we see drug dealers getting the same amount of time as murders and rapists. Obviously this is still a problem today, the war on drugs is still going strong. Some states even have a third time law, if you are caught with drugs three times the sentence is pushed to fifteen years or more. These kind of laws and prison times basically are taking away the lives of those caught instead of rehabilitating them. Alexander says, “That drug offenders are released into a permanent second-class status in which they are stripped of basic civil and human rights, like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to public benefits”. Within the Jim Crow laws we know that black men were refused the right to vote, denied citizenship and saw racial exclusion.
I think with those points that Alexander absolutely has some persuasiveness to it, like the Jim Crow laws when those convicted of drugs offenses get out of the prison system they often lose the right to vote and are no longer seen as a first class citizen. That felony status sticks with the offender for life, even takes away opportunity for a solid job or opportunity to make a living for their family. Yet, where the idea is less persuasive is in the fact that during the Jim Crow law times those denied rights didn’t do anything to get those rights taken away. Where those stuck in the prison system and with felony status made a decision to sell drugs, although we do sometimes see people take the blame for others in those crimes, more times than not they do get the right guy. I do agree with Alexander in the fact that something better has to be done that those convicted with petty drug charges shouldn’t have the same life changing status and time as those who are murders, something else needs to be done so that they can either learn a trade or do not lose their rights from just a drug
charge.
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
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).
The Author transitions the past and present signatures of Jim Crow and the New Jim Crow with the suggestion that the New Jim Crow, by mass incarceration and racism as a whole, marginalizes and relegates Blacks to residential, educational and constitutionally endowed service to the Country. The final chapter of The New Jim Crow reviews the manner in which the Black community might respond to the racism that exists today. Some research implies that we in America have reached a point of attrition as to incarceration, and the positive effects outweigh the negative effects of marginalization and collateral damage to the community. By some research, the "War on Drugs" procreates poverty, joblessness, family breakdown, and crime.
The United States has a long history of racial problems, starting during the times of slavery, and discrimination is still seen in the present-day. Looking back on history allows us to create parallels between the past and present giving us the opportunity to see what will happen before it actually does. Since this problem has continued to exist, certain patterns have recurred. Similar issues come up in every era, unfortunately, but we are able to get a sense of what may happen if theses problems continue as those of the past. In “The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, descriptions of slavery and the Jim Crow South are used to show the effects of years of injustice on minority
Michelle Alexander wrote a book called "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness." The original Jim Crow was a racial caste system that segregated whites from blacks, where whites were privileged and viewed as the chosen ones while blacks were taught to be minority and used as servants between 1877 and the 1960s. The Jim Crow system kept whites superior to blacks with laws created to keep whites favored. It was a legal way to prevent African Americans from getting an equal education, from voting; it was a system of "Separate but Equal". In 1964 the Civil Rights Act was passed to outlaw discrimination due to ones skin color. Although this act was passed we still continue to live in a society where discrimination is quite relevant but systemized. Through Michelle Alexander's book we can understand her argument that there is a new form of legal discrimination although laws state that discriminating an individual because of their race is illegal. Michelle explains that there is a current mass incarceration among black men in the United States. The use of, possession of, or selling drugs is illegal but it has been systematically created that laws make it impossible to. She claims that the criminal justice system uses the War on Drugs as a way to discriminate and repress the black man.
“The New Jim Crow” is an article by Michelle Alexander, published by the Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law. Michelle is a professor at the Ohio State Moritz college of criminal law as well as a civil rights advocate. Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law is part of the world’s top education system, is accredited by the American Bar Association, and is a long-time member of the American Law association. The goal of “The New Jim Crow” is to inform the public about the issues of race in our country, especially our legal system. The article is written in plain English, so the common person can fully understand it, but it also remains very professional. Throughout the article, Alexander provides factual information about racial issues in our country. She relates them back to the Jim Crow era and explains how the large social problem affects individual lives of people of color all over the country. By doing this, Alexander appeals to the reader’s ethos, logos, and pathos, forming a persuasive essay that shifts the understanding and opinions of all readers.
The first chapter in The New Jim Crow called The Rebirth of Caste, Alexander talks about how even though slavery has passed and there are people still out there to keep our society divided. This was called racial hierarchy is a system of belief that some racial groups were either superior or inferior. The superior where considered the most powerful while this left the inferior at the bottom. As slavery left, the superior used the War on Drugs and mass incarcerations as a way to separate and control blacks once again but through the legal system. Alexander then comes into talking about the history before all this has happened. The beginning of slavery to when Jim Crow laws and practices were implemented but then outlawed because of the Civil Rights Movement. Eventually unjust treatment of blacks through the criminal justice system came to be allowed into society such as mass incarceration.
Though slavery was arguably abolished, “for thousands of blacks, the badge of slavery [lives] on” (Alexander 141). Many young black men today face similar discrimination as a black man in the Jim Crow era - in housing, employment, public benefits, and so-called constitutional rights. This discrimination characterizes itself on a basis of a person’s criminal record, making it perfectly legal. As Alexander suggests, “This is the new normal, the new racial equilibrium” (Alexander, 181).
For 75 years following reconstruction the United States made little advancement towards racial equality. Many parts of the nation enacted Jim Crowe laws making separation of the races not just a matter of practice but a matter of law. The laws were implemented with the explicit purpose of keeping black American’s from being able to enjoy the rights and freedoms their white counterparts took for granted. Despite the efforts of so many nameless forgotten heroes, the fate of African Americans seemed to be in the hands of a racist society bent on keeping them down; however that all began to change following World War II. Thousands of African American men returned from Europe with a renewed purpose and determined to break the proverbial chains segregation had keep them in since the end of the American Civil War. With a piece of Civil Rights legislation in 1957, the federal government took its first step towards breaking the bonds that had held too many citizens down for far too long. The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a watered down version of the law initially proposed but what has been perceived as a small step towards correcting the mistakes of the past was actually a giant leap forward for a nation still stuck in the muck of racial division. What some historians have dismissed as an insignificant and weak act was perhaps the most important law passed during the nation’s civil rights movement, because it was the first and that cannot be underestimated.
Throughout the semester, we have discussed many different issues that are currently prevalent in the United States, specifically those related to racial discrimination. One specific issue that I have developed interest and research in is that of institutionalized racism, specifically in the form of mass incarceration, and what kinds of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this paper, I will briefly examine a range of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of black and Latino males, the development of a racial undercaste because of rising incarceration rates, women and children’s involvement and roles they attain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its development.
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.
“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”(Lyndon Johnson). For generations in the United Stated, ethnic minorities have been discriminated against and denied fair opportunity and equal rights. In the beginning there was slavery, and thereafter came an era of racism which directly impacted millions of minorities lives. This period called Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system up in till mid 1960s. Jim Crow was more than just a series of severe anti-Black laws, it became a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were positioned to the status of second class citizens. What Jim Crow did is represented the anti-Black racism. Further on, In 1970’s the term “War on Drugs” was coined by President Richard Nixon . Later President Ronald Reagan officially declared the current drug war. In reality the war had little to do with drug crime and a lot to do with racial politics. The drug war was part of a strategy of used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as national threat. Therefore, they called for a national anti-drug policy, the policy began pushing for the involvement of the police force and military in drug prohibition efforts. The government did believe that blacks or minorities were a cause of the drug problem. They concentrated on inner city poor neighborhoods, drug related violence, they wanted to publicize the drug war which lead Congress to devote millions of dollars in additional funding to it. The war on drugs targeted and criminalized disproportionably urban minorities. There for, “War on Drugs” results in the incarceration of one million Americans ...
Equality is something that should be given to every human and not earned or be taken away. However, this idea does not present itself during the 1930’s in the southern states including Alabama. African Americans faced overwhelming challenges because of the thought of race superiority. Therefore, racism in the southern states towards African Americans made their lives tough to live because of disparity and inhumane actions towards this particular group of people.
We like to imagine that our current society in America is more advanced than most other regions of the world. Recent legislation in Georgia and North Carolina is just another reminder that those thoughts are mere illusions. These states are trying to block the civil rights of LGBT individuals and make it legal for anyone to infringe upon them. This article from Timothy Holbrook attempts to make sense of the reasoning behind these recent laws. I feel he makes a phenomenal case against these bills and presents sound reasoning why it is in our best interest to oppose these types of legislation.
Jim Crow Laws ended over 50 years ago, but there are still very strong, racial tensions in this country. Especially when the topic of police brutality is brung up. How did this happen? Where did it come from? The racism that prominently exists today traces back to the day we were suddenly separated not by religion, wealth, or even interests, but by race. The declaration of 1705 in the Virginia Assembly pinpointed the official racial segregation between whites and people of color that we are all familiar with to a certain degree. The law said, in context, that everyone who wasn’t English was to be a slave for life. For over a 150 years, that practice socially, politically, and economically separated the races. Socially, we are very separated to the extent where in some places in this country we do not even socialize with each