Summary Of The New Jim Crow

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If white and black people were asked whether racism still exist in the United States, the disproportionate yes and no answers will shock you. Many whites well agree racism has died, while on the other hand, African Americans will agree that racism is alive and well. The race relations within the United States have not changed and remain fundamentally like the race relations of the Reconstruction Era. The period after the civil war not only led to the reconstruction of the South and its economy, but new social constructs arose as well. The newly emancipated African Americans could join a hostile white society, a realm in which they never existed as equals, let alone human. The new black members of society faced resistance and never were fully …show more content…

Alexander guides the reader through American history and American law which leaves no room for an acceptable rebuttal. The text overall is enlightening, yet abrasive. Alexander provides real cases, statistics, and historical background which properly reveal and convey how calculated our system is. The new forms of racism are easily lost in procedural drills or hidden behind ambiguous and pointed laws. The truth set out by the novel can honestly scare some Americans. The harshness of the reality laid out by Alexander can dismantle the preconceived notions of our country being free and fair, a notion many Americans deeply pride themselves in. This dismantling is crucial in opening the mind and heart of those who remain oblivious to the other side of America; a side which systematically oppresses and marginalizes a group of Americans whether it's based off color or not. Alexander, unlike Rankine, leaves no room for interpretation. The literature created by Alexander makes it almost impossible to disagree with the fact that racism towards blacks exist, while Citizen allows the reader to dive into everyday occurrences of racism without it focusing only on the black …show more content…

These three pieces of literature reveal how our society has come full circle, from the 1850's up until 2018. In the land of the free we still have second class citizens created by our "just" legal system, and microaggressions which are remnants of old school racism, difficult to erase because of how subtle. These forms of racism have permeated the mind subconsciously through environmental, institutional, or societal cues. This only shows how much further we as a collective country must go to rid the future of these damaging preconceived notions. This will prove difficult because of how harmless and personal the incidents of microaggressions seem. This allows for the offender and offended to brush it off, or deny the incident even occurred. Rankine compares microaggressions to rain droplets. Alone one drop of water is harmless, but the wetness is still on your shirt. Cohesively, water droplets can soak your shirt, cause a mudslide; simply cause some sort of damage. Like water drops, we must remain together in the battle against these microaggressions to prove most successful. As a nation it's time to rise and admit the faults and prejudice of our legal system. It's time to realize that politics, race, and law are too tightly interwoven in our country and needs reform. If institutions of our country assist in creating such

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