This is a photo I took while marching with the Black Lives Matter in November 2014 shortly after the death of Eric Garner and the shooting of Tamir Rice. As I marched with tens of thousands of blacks, whites, and many others, we collectively identified ourselves as one and shouted our protest against systemic racism that envelopes every fabric of our nation. However, growing up in a homogenous Nebraska home, I was not always so aware of the anatomy of racism. It was not until I assisted in ‘gutting homes’ in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in the summers of 2005 through 2007 that I began to realize how ‘stuck’ non-whites truly are. When I first arrived in New Orleans as a fresh-faced sixteen-year old high schooler, I believed George W. …show more content…
But the stark reality of ghettoization, seven-eleven gas stations instead of grocery stores, and unemployment revealed my own ignorance. It was from that point forward that I began to think differently about race and racism. In undergrad, I took courses on the perpetuation of racism and slavery with the assistance of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow and Douglas Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name. As I outline the basic structure and dynamics of racism and slavery, these two resources have played a critical role in my own development. Additionally, for me to fully flesh out my understanding of racism, it must start with chattel slavery through the Transatlantic Slave Trade and progress into antebellum-era slavery with a culmination in Jim Crow era laws, the Civil Rights Movement, ‘the War on Drugs’, and the ‘Stand your Ground’ ordinances. It should be noted that I am incorporating segment from other papers I have written on racism and …show more content…
This forced migration of innocent Africans by white traders and slavers has been well documented as of late by historians. Chattel slavery, as a colonial European concept began with the Portuguese and Spanish in the fifteenth century. Chattel slavery, also known as traditional slavery, involves labeling a bondaged person as property to be sold by the enslaver to often the highest bidder; chattel slaves were also given as gifts or bargained for trade goods. As early as the ninth century, the Moors introduced the Portuguese to black African slavery, but it had been occurring within the African continent for centuries before that. North African Muslim dealers would often transport Western Africans through the Sahara on caravans to be sold in Iberian slave markets. Portugal was not unfamiliar with the slave trade because African slaves made up three percent of the country’s population. Slavery existed in Africa before the Arab slavers, but generally came about when one warlord would enslave the captives of the defeated warlord. A criticism levied against European colonialism expresses that they were the first to introduce chattel slavery, and although this may be the case, it is apparent that the North African Arabs were in the slavery business first. However, Portugal was the very first to capitalize upon the Arab slave trade and introduce
Despite the passing of the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action, racism evolved from the blatant discrimination of the 1960s like segregation, to the slightly more passive racism of the 1990s such as unfair arrests/jail time (Taylor). Curtis’ writes three decades after the aforementioned progress and yet, looking back on the 90s, there is an alarming amount of similarities between the two.
Assumptions from the beginning, presumed the Jim Crow laws went hand in hand with slavery. Slavery, though, contained an intimacy between the races that the Jim Crow South did not possess. Woodward used another historian’s quote to illustrate the familiarity of blacks and whites in the South during slavery, “In every city in Dixie,’ writes Wade, ‘blacks and whites lived side by side, sharing the same premises if not equal facilities and living constantly in each other’s presence.” (14) Slavery brought about horrible consequences for blacks, but also showed a white tolerance towards blacks. Woodward explained the effect created from the proximity between white owners and slaves was, “an overlapping of freedom and bondage that menaced the institution of slavery and promoted a familiarity and association between black and white that challenged caste taboos.” (15) The lifestyle between slaves and white owners were familiar, because of the permissiveness of their relationship. His quote displayed how interlocked blacks...
William Julius Wilson creates a thrilling new systematic framework to three politically tense social problems: “the plight of low-skilled black males, the persistence of the inner-city ghetto, and the fragmentation of the African American family” (Wilson, 36). Though the conversation of racial inequality is classically divided. Wilson challenges the relationship between institutional and cultural factors as reasons of the racial forces, which are inseparably linked, but public policy can only change the racial status quo by reforming the institutions that support it.
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.
They argue that the accruing of property by figures such as Johnson meant that they literally did not think of themselves as living within a racist society, and that, despite the decline of this freedom, it is a mistake to consider their opinions as an “aberration” in a narrative of inevitable racial exploitation (Breen & Innes, 112). Rather, they claim that to understand such people as such an aberration inevitably leads to a situation in which the real equality of their freedom is
While the formal abolition of slavery, on the 6th of December 1865 freed black Americans from their slave labour, they were still unequal to and discriminated by white Americans for the next century. This ‘freedom’, meant that black Americans ‘felt like a bird out of a cage’ , but this freedom from slavery did not equate to their complete liberty, rather they were kept in destitute through their economic, social, and political state.
“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 Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Van Woodward, traces the history of race relations in the United States from the mid and late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. In doing so Woodward brings to light significant aspects of Reconstruction that remain unknown to many today. He argues that the races were not as separate many people believe until the Jim Crow laws. To set up such an argument, Woodward first outlines the relationship between Southern and Northern whites, and African Americans during the nineteenth century. He then breaks down the details of the injustice brought about by the Jim Crow laws, and outlines the transformation in American society from discrimination to Civil Rights. Woodward’s argument is very persuasive because he uses specific evidence to support his opinions and to connect his ideas. Considering the time period in which the book and its editions were written, it should be praised for its insight into and analysis of the most important social issue in American history.
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).
Though the Atlantic Slave Trade began in 1441, it wasn’t until nearly a century later that Europeans actually became interested in slave trading on the West African coast. “With no interest in conquering the interior, they concentrated their efforts to obtain human cargo along the West African coast. During the 1590s, the Dutch challenged the Portuguese monopoly to become the main slave trading nation (“Africa and the Atlantic Slave Trade”, NA). Besides the trading of slaves, it was also during this time that political changes were being made. The Europe...
Fueled by fear and ignorance, racism has corrupted the hearts of mankind throughout history. In the mid-1970’s, Brent Staples discovered such prejudice toward black men for merely being present in public. Staples wrote an essay describing how he could not even walk down the street normally, people, especially women, would stray away from him out of terror. Staples demonstrates his understanding of this fearful discrimination through his narrative structure, selection of detail, and manipulation of language.
The New Jim Crow is a wake-up call in the midst of a long slumber of indifference to the poor and vulnerable. This book is a genuine resurrection of the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. amid the confusion of the Age of Obama. The Age of Obama is a time of historic breakthroughs at the level of symbols and political surfaces. Alexander’s subtle analysis shifts our attention from the racial symbol of America’s achievement to the actual substance of American’s shame and the massive use of state power to incarcerate hundreds of thousands of poor black males and females in the name of the bogus “war on drugs.’ Alexander takes us through the historical narrative tracing the unconscionable treatment and brutal control of black people from slavery
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).
A root problem in society is that Americans often seem to struggle to see the ways that racial historical legacy continues to influence life today. Most Americans remain blind to the interminable cycle of racial prejudices that affect nearly seventy percent of the nation’s population. It’s no secret that the underlying factor in slavery was race, or that thousands of immigrants were treated unfairly in the workforce during the Industrial Revolution because of nativist views. Discrimination is widely prevalent in the United States today, and the culture continues to perpetuate racial stereotypes in various forms. Take for example recent issues of racial profiling in Ferguson, Missouri and Staten Island. Ultimately, the resolve to create some universal truth from these racial biases is pivotal.
In Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, she ties the history of the United States with social issues that exist between races in the modern era, including examples of the racial caste system, racial segregation, and white privilege. Although there are many thoughts on how America is a patriotic and free institution, Alexander’s view of the American history shows that white elitists will “rise to the occasion” to retake order and control over those who dare challenge their way of life, ensuring chaos amongst both sides. According to Alexander, the racial caste system in America never ceases but rather adapts. Alexander describes America’s history as a “story of the political and economic underpinnings of the nation’s founding which sheds