Jim Crow laws were laws created to strengthen racism and segregation. It was a white person’s desperate attempt to maintain a sort of superiority over black people. Nowadays it might seem impossible for laws promoting racism and segregation to exist, but they do. Concealed by inconspicuous phrasing there are still laws to this day that allow blacks and other minorities to be taken advantage of solely based on their race. The book written by Michelle Alexander titled The New Jim Crow outlines the major problems associated with the American judicial system, mainly the War on Drugs. Alexander brings to light many issues that primarily affect blacks and other minorities from this she derives that America has a new set of Jim Crow Laws. Given the …show more content…
Now in a more politically correct society, if law makers wanted to pass legislature that adversely affected a specific racial group they would have to do so incognito. The War on Drugs might not say in plain text that blacks are affected differently than whites but they are, similarly to the Jim Crow laws. This unequal treatment has always been inevitable to happen because white people have always had more influence in the government. After the Jim Crow laws were abolished there was a period where equality wasn’t something impossible to think about. After the War on Drugs started it took all of that hope away. The drug war is not fought equally throughout the United States, instead it is fought in the inner cities where mostly black people reside. An excerpt from Alexanders book describes how blacks were targeted by the media which fed from the Regan …show more content…
She quotes the fifteenth amendment and its passage about voting rights, “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied ... on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude” (143). She then relates this passage to the Jim Crow laws, where the United States government did everything in their power to stop blacks from voting without violating the fifteenth amendment. They had poll taxes that blacks couldn’t afford, they had a literacy test where blacks couldn’t pass because they were denied education and they had a grandfather clause where if your previous generations could vote so could you. This all relates back to the idea of the white law makers and government officials creating legislature that does not clearly state discriminatory policies, but the way it affects the citizens is based on race. Currently the United States denies felons the right to vote. The problem with this is that the mass incarceration of African-Americans (specifically relating to the drug war) leads to an inaccurate representation of the African-American versus white vote. Because blacks are more likely to be arrested and suffer more severe punishments than whites for similar crimes leads to a larger percent of white people voting. With a disproportional amount of white people versus black people who have the right to vote it leads
Vann Woodward's The Strange Career of Jim Crow. In 1955, C. Vann Woodward published the first edition of his book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow. The book garnered immediate recognition and success with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eventually calling it, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” An endorsement like this one from such a prominent and respected figure in American history makes one wonder if they will find anything in the book to criticize or any faults to point out.
In the months following the Brown v. Board of Education decision C. Vann Woodward wrote a series of lectures that would provide the basis for one of the most historically significant pieces of nonfiction literature written in the 20th century. Originally, Woodward’s lectures were directed to a local and predominantly southern audience, but as his lectures matured into a comprehensive text they gained national recognition. In 1955 Woodward published the first version of The Strange Career of Jim Crow, a novel that would spark a fluid historical dialogue that would continue for the next twenty years. Woodward foresaw this possibility as he included in the first edition, “Since I am…dealing with a period of the past that has not been adequately investigated, and also with events of the present that have come too rapidly and recently to have been properly digested and understood, it is rather inevitable that I shall make some mistakes. I shall expect and hope to be corrected.” Over this time period Woodward released four separate editions, in chapter form, that modified, corrected, and responded to contemporary criticisms.
C. Vann Woodward wrote The Strange Career of Jim Crow for a purpose. His purpose was to enlighten people about the history of the Jim Crow laws in the South. Martin Luther King Jr. called Woodward’s book, “the historical Bible of the civil rights movement.” (221) Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote revealed the true importance of Woodward’s book. Woodard’s book significance was based on it revealing the strange, forgotten facets of the Jim Crow laws. Assumptions about the Jim Crow’s career have existed since its creation. Woodward tried to eliminate the false theories as he attempted to uncover the truths. Woodward argued the strangest aspects of Jim Crow’s career were, it was a recent innovation and not created in the South
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).
Professor Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, writes that a racial caste system existing in America reflect the Jim Crow laws that were "separate but equal" from the time of the Civil War until the passage of the Civil Rights Acts in the mid 1960's and which continue today. She is a graduate from Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University and clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Subsequently, she was on the faculty of Sanford Law School serving as the Director of the Civil Rights Clinic before receiving a Soros Justice Fellowship and an appointment to the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. Professor Alexander has litigated civil rights cases in private practice while associated with at Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller law firm, with additional advocacy through the non-profit sector, as the Director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California.
Jim Crow laws were a formal, codified system of racial apartheid that dominated the American South for three quarters of a century beginning in the 1890s. (Jim Crow Laws, PBS). Jim Crow laws had the same ideals that slave codes had. At this time slavery had been abolished, but because of Jim Crow, the newly freed black people were still looked at as inferior. One of the similarities between slave codes and Jim Crow laws was that both sets of laws did not allow equal education opportunities. The schools were separated, of course, which cause the white schools to be richer and more advanced in education than black schools. This relates to slave codes because slaves were not allowed to read which hindered their learning of when they were able to read and write. Another similarity is alcohol. In the Jim Crow era persons who sold beer or wine were not allowed to serve both white and colored people, so they had to sell to either one or the other. This is similar to slave codes because in most states slaves were not allowed to purchase whiskey at all, unless they had permission from their owners. Slaves did not eat with their white owners. In the Jim Crow era whites and blacks could not eat together at all, and if there was some odd circumstance that whites and blacks did eat together then the white person was served first and there was usually something in between them. This relates to slave codes because
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.
Racism is not a factor of the heart, according to Tommie Shelby in “Is Racism in the ‘Heart’?” He writes “the ‘heart’ does not have to be involved in order for an action or institution to be racist” (483). Instead, Shelby argues that racism is based on the effect of a person’s actions on deepening racist institutions or promulgating the oppression of a particular group of people based on their race. The individual intention of a person or the “purity” or his or her heart does not take precedence over the effect of his or her actions. Shelby’s argument is constructed as follows: Individual beliefs can be true or false but not inherently immoral. Therefore, it is not appropriate to morally condemn someone for holding a particular belief. However, when the particular belief leads to “race-based hatred...actions...or institutions” that is when it becomes appropriate to hold the individual with the belief morally culpable for racism.
The drug war is the New Jim Crow because it empowers the state with the tools to target, and denies African Americans civil rights, citizenship, and justice in the pretext of elaborate criminal changes that serve as a mean to furthermore disenfranchise African Americans.
Reading my first book for this class, I was really looking forward to it. The book, The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, is an interesting book because it touches base on mass incarceration and the caste system. Figuring out that society is on a war on drugs and racism in the justice system is upsetting, and yet interesting. Michelle does a really nice job in organizing the book and presenting the plot. The fact that this book informs and explains arguments, what is happening with the justices system is complete true. Our lives would look complete different; and some of her points are happening. People do not realize getting incarcerated will take some of rights away. This essay will reflect on the book its self, answer questions,
When it comes to the topic of war on drugs,most of us will readily agree that the war on drugs is not about the drugs But about the people. Many Politicians and law enforcement will argue that the war on drugs is about our nation's wealth and safety.however they don't see the destruction the war on drugs has caused; The war on drugs has recreated this new system of discrimination among the minority community, individuals and communities are being profiled,their rights as citizen are being seized ,individuals being stripped away from their families. They’re being locked up with no hope to live the American dream in their our country.
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 used by the government. The President identified drug abuse as a 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.
The phrase, “war on drugs” was first used by Former President Nixon. The polices created tried to control the supply and demand of drugs but “the war on drugs” turned into a war on minority communities, especially African Americas. At this time, cocaine was introduced to the scene, but was mainly used by Caucasians. The police did not pay much mind to it until this very same drug started to show up in African American communities. (Welch 2007) “Urban black Americans have borne the brunt of the War on Drugs. They have been arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned at increasing rates since the early 1980s, and grossly out of proportion to their numbers in the general population or among drug users. (Welch 2007) The war on drugs helped create the stereotype that African Americans are the top users and distributors of drugs which is untrue. This made police single out minorities, especially African Americans when it came searches, arrests, and convictions. As stated earlier, police raid Dee’s project and arrested her and several other people. This was a pre-determined raid that in the eyes of many, was unlawful and unjust. Many people that were locked up with Dee and/or prior to Dee arriving at the prison, were there on drug charges. This is not the first time when drug raids have plagued the African American community. Police target these populations quite often. African Americans
When Jim Crow laws passed they were mainly based on the theory of white supremacy and were a reaction to Reconstruction (Costly, 2018). According to the article, A Brief History of Jim Crow, “In the depression-racked 1890s, racism appealed to whites who feared losing their jobs to blacks. Politicians abused blacks to win the votes of poor white “crackers.” Newspapers fed the bias of white readers by playing up (sometimes even making up) black crimes” (Costly, 2018). Essentially, the Jim Crow laws were passed out of fear—the whites feared that the blacks would take their jobs and so they abused blacks and sometimes would even create fake crimes; they would ‘blame a black individual’ to keep blacks out of the working class of society (Costly, 2018). Jim Crow Laws sought to keep blacks and whites segregated; blacks and whites could not work in the same building, take the same transportation, or even be in the same room together (Costly, 2018). During this time, if blacks were caught associating with whites, they would suffer the consequences of horrific acts of violence, most commonly lynching (Costly, 2018). In Jean Toomer’s Cane, he addresses this act of violence: “Toms wrists were bound. The big man shoved him to the well. Burn him over it, and when the woodwork caved in, his