Slavery And The Jim Crow Laws

Racism has been a moral deficiency in American history because of the atrocities that occurred against the African American community prior to the fifteenth amendment and after it as well. African Americans once freed had a hard time fighting to attain equality in the eyes of the law and amongst their peers but some scholars such as Michelle Alexander feel that this has not yet been achieved (Alexander, 2011). Slavery and the Jim Crow laws were put in place to hinder the rights of African Americans but they have since been repealed to promote racial equality. Unfortunately, there are a large percentage of African Americans in the prison system due to drug violations and Alexander attributes this phenomenon to racial profiling and an underhand political attempt to silence African Americans. While systematic racism may possibly be hidden through false pretenses of the war on drugs, there are many other factors that contribute to who this war actually targets such as genetic predisposition to addiction and financial statuses and we need to focus on treating these addictions rather than incarcerating these people who choose to violate the law.

Michelle Alexander is abhorred by what she considers to be systematic racism that is plaguing our country masquerading as the war on drugs. She feels the primary goal of this war is to imprison African Americans without the consequences of being pursued as a racist entity (Alexander, 2011). She claims that the systematic racism is a modern day form of Jim Crow laws, which prevent African Americans from voting and thus silences them from playing a role in democracy. She has correlated the higher rate of African American individuals in prison for drug related charges to this so called secret poli...

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...fair to operate on a basis of classism but to classify it, as racism is also unjust. To help remedy this situation in our country, we need to implement a procedure of curing drug abuse rather than incarcerating individuals who violate the law to ensure a healthier future. Next, we need to screen individuals to predict if they have a genetic predisposition to help combat initial usage. Education, prevention, and a more comprehensive punishment that includes methods for rehabilitation will lead the way in attempting to rid drugs from our communities until they are potentially legalized. At the end of the day, drugs are illegal and will continue to be illegal so if the war on drugs is truly a racist entity, like Michelle Alexander would like us to believe, then at the best way to combat it is to not ingest drugs or have them on your person or in your home at any time.