Summary Of Forman's Critique Of The Jim Crow Analogy

“Show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again and that’s what they become” (Adichie, 2014). Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie warns that if we hear only a single story about another person or country, we risk a critical misunderstanding. Forman’s critique of the Jim Crow Analogy appropriately depicts the danger of a single story. While I agree with most of Michelle Alexander’s submission regarding mass incarceration, reading Forman’s critiques about Jim Crow analogy provided a wider horizon and a far more realistic potential at stopping the incalculable damage mass incarceration has inflicted on the US community. I found the following Forman’s critiques as his strongest and most valid arguments:
It fails to consider Black attitudes toward crime and punishment
In as much as I agree that Low-income and undereducated African Americans are currently incarcerated at unprecedented levels, debating the evil of mass incarceration cannot be done at the expense of many victims of violent crime whose blood cry for vengeance. According to Foreman (2012), “more than 90% of black homicide victims are

killed by blacks, and more than 75% of all crimes against black victims are committed by blacks” (p. 15). Forman made a valid argument that this fact has motivated many African Americans to adopt tough-on-crime position.
It ignores violent crime
Forman made a strong point supported with statistics that drug offenders made up of just 25% of populations in both federal and state US jails and prisons while violent offenders make up about 50% of US state prisoners.

He argues that as compelling as the critics of war on drug is, it cannot be the basis for the appalling US mass incarceration rate because as he stated, “Considering all forms of penal institutions together, more prisoners are locked up for violent offenses than for any other type, and just under 25% (550,000) of our nation's 2.3 million prisoners are drug offenders” (Forman, 2012. P. 19). So releasing every single one of these drug offenders will not prevent the United States from still remaining the world's largest prison system operator. I thought if the argument is about mass incarceration, we cannot leave violent crime out of the

debate.
It overlooks the effects of mass incarceration on other racial groups
Forman reported that one third of the nation’s prisoners are white and that Hispanics constitute about 20% of the US prisoners (Forman, 2012. P. 28). He stated further, “For some categories of offenses where our laws are especially severe, such as possession of child pornography, most of the defendants are middle-aged white men and prosecutions for sexually explicit material offenses have risen by more than 400% since 1996” (Forman, 2012. P. 28). To me this is a valid argument that if the protest against mass incarceration must be won squarely, we cannot afford to see other racial group victims as a mere ‘collateral damage’.