Disguised Discrimination In Michelle Alexander’s speech on her book The New Jim Crow, she vividly describes the past forms of blatant oppression of minority groups, especially Latino, and even more so, African American men. Such political systems such as slavery and Jim Crow Laws, were discussed as government intended repression of African Americans. The War on Drugs is then blamed for unfairly targeting minorities, which results in staggering rates of Black and Hispanic arrests. She later relates the past direct forms of discrimination to today’s indirect forms, and informs her audience on how our present political system has a very similar effect to the Jim Crow laws. I feel she effectively and convincingly states her argument using clear and concise language. Alexander effectively reviewed and explained the racial caste that our country instilled on African Americans in the past, through purposeful discrimination. Even prior to the Jim Crow laws, Black men and women had very few if any rights to employment, own land, or equal opportunities in general. Preceding these however was a far worse form of dehumanization, it was the atrocity that was slavery. This persistently prejudice judicial system no doubt impressed an ongoing lie of racial inferiority, which was difficult to overcome. While I was unsure of the meaning of this “Racial Caste system” Alexander was referring to, it was later explained as a social structure that intentionally divides and belittles individuals due to their ethnicity. I found Michelle Alexander’s discussion on the “War on Drugs” to be especially interesting. She thoroughly explained how even though the laws claim to be indiscriminate, their application tends to focus heavily on minorities espec... ... middle of paper ... ...ential and succinct. It helped me to better understand the reality of America’s judicial system, and the underlying prejudices that exists in many the nations policies and law. Her arguments on mass incarceration were very convincing and well organized, as well as her description of the “War on Drugs”. She also effectively related the former Jim Crow Las to our judicial system today. This speech very closely relates to the information we have been discussing because it gives insight into reality of mass incarceration. This epic imprisonment of an increasing population has made a business out of penitentiaries, and has made prison cells the homes of millions. More than ever The United States is focusing on law enforcement, prisons and the judicial system as a whole. Michelle Alexander’s has called for the nation to switch focuses, from incarceration, to restoration.
Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, examines the development of institutionalized racism following the war on drugs, and how it has created what Alexander calls a “New Jim Crow era,” or a racial caste in the US. Alexander describes this undercaste as, “a lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society,” (Alexander, 32). Not only is this because of mass incarceration rates among black men, but extends to the effects that these branded felons must face beyond prison walls. By checking the well known box on any application, it has become legal for almost any institution or corporation to discriminate against a marked felon. Alexander notes that, “Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination – employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusio...
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is a thorough and thought provoking analysis of mass incarceration in America. Through this book Alexander explores the dynamics of the criminal justice system and the propaganda that enables it which have led to the establishment and maintenance of a racial undercaste system that has been perpetuated by a felony criminal record. Within this book Alexander provides a history of the disenfranchisement of the black male from the overt racism of slavery and Jim Crow to the colorblind drug and sentencing policies of the 20th and 21st century.
She first presented her insights with an elaborate historical background of how, a century later, the Jim Crow Laws are still present in our society. Alexander introduces us to the Cotton family who were denied their right to participate in the American electoral democracy on not only one or two occasion, but on several occasions. Alexander suggests that this denial is a generational wrong by the government, as she highlights the injustices that the Cotton family encountered as black individuals born in the United States. Jarvious Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote because he was a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was highly intimidated by the Ku Klux Klan. His father was subjected to a literacy test that prevented him from voting. Now, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many other black men in the United States, has been labeled as a felon and is on parole (Alexander 1). According to Alexander, once one is given the title of a “felon” the old forms of discrimination arise: unemployment, housing, education, public services and denial of the right to vote the list goes on and on (Alexander
Racism has jumped to the forefront of conversation politically as well as socially recently. However, many fail to see the full extent of racism and the harmful effects it has had in American history. Post civil war brought a realization to the nation, that although now free, blacks, Indians and mixed descendants or mulatto’s were considered a lower class and Jim Crow Laws help cement them in this class of society. These laws, many referenced post Civil War, have origins dating pre Civil War as well. In 1835, “North Carolina passed a new constitution, which declared that ‘free Negroes, free mulattos, and free persons of mixed blood’ could not vote.” This de facto movement not only affected the lives of African Americans but also immigrants, Catholics, Jews and other groups of people.
People carry the stigma of being criminals for their entire lives. Michelle Alexander, the writer of The New Jim Crow, describes the challenges criminals face after being released from prison. In the beginning of chapter four, she argues that they were treated cruelly by society, comparing them to freed slaves during the era of emancipation. Alexander effectively makes emotional appeals, logical moves, and convincing citations to add the credibility of her argument. Moreover, she organizes the passage through connected timelines and comparisons, successfully proving that criminals today encounter tough and biased treatment from the society.
Michelle Alexander starts by talking about a guy named Jarvis Cotton’s who father, father's father, and fathers father father didnt couldn't vote because of Klu Klux Klan intimidation and poll taxes. Cotton couldn't vote either because of a felony conviction. Our country coerced African-American males as a key to the original union; even at this period in time black males aren't still able to vote due to their criminal backgrounds. They are faced with prejudices not just in the criminal system but also in housing, employment, voting, food stamps, jury service much like what blacks were faced with when the Jim Crow laws were enacted. Alexander was delighted when we got our first black president Barack Obama and thought of Jim Crow as being a thing of the past. Alexander hadn't noticed a new racist social system, and when she began working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) she seen that there was racism in the criminal justice system but that was it.However she found more like the War on Drugs that a lot of people think got started during the epidemic crack in the eighties and nineties, but then president Ronald Reagan actually declared it before the drug got all over the news. Also surprisingly the so-called War on Drugs began when the country was seeing a decrease in illegal drug usage.The war made the United States incarceration rate higher than anywhere else.
"The New Jim Crow" focuses on the racial views of the War on Drugs. Michelle Alexander argues that federal drug policy unjustly targets communities of color, leading to the cycle of predominately black males in jails and living under the poverty line. She begins her book by stating that claims of racism are not dead. Those who believe that equality has been achieved are mistaken and should open up their eyes and notice the life of many African Americans today. Alexander also points out that a huge portion of blacks are still not allowed to vote because in almost every state a convicted felon cannot vote. Alexander reveals the truth of mass incarceration a system built of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control criminals even after being
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).
Through the term Jim Crow is not one that you see on a day-to-day basis to refer to the disenfranchisement of blacks in today’s society, it still exist and is full fledged. Targeting black through the form of drugs allows for racial discrimination to occur without using the classification as a public basis. Though one might argue that the issue is drugs, race is a consistent trait that is common is all cases of mass incarceration.
1. Michelle Alexander book purpose is to expose the structural racism against the African American community and brown men face. This structural racism is expressed by the state in mass incarceration of African American and other color males and thus crates a new racial caste system. The method the state used to make this new comprehensive, excellently disguised system of racialized social control was done by the War on Drugs. And Alexander reason for the book to promulgate discussion on the racial inequalities in society.
Politically speaking, neoconservative racial projects deny the significance of race, which produces colorblind racial politics and policies that do not account for the ways in which race and racism still structure society. For example, legal scholar and civil rights attorney Michelle Alexander demonstrates in her book, The New Jim Crow, how the seemingly race-neutral “war on drugs” has been waged in a racist way due to racial biases in policing, legal proceedings, and sentencing, all of which result in the vast overrepresentation of black and Latino men in U.S. prisons. This colorblind racial project represents race as inconsequential in society, and suggests that those who find themselves in prison are simply criminals who deserve to be there.
Alexander has written many books, but she is mostly known for her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. In the book, Alexander argues the systematic racial in the United States and how the War on Drugs and other governmental policies is having devastating social consequences. Comparing a prisoner today to a slave, she states, “Today a criminal freed from prison has scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a freed slave…” (pg.141) Criminals also known as “slaves” lose respect from the world the second they have a criminal background. The status of a criminal is often compared to the status of a slave especialy, if he or she is African America. Moreover, she states, “When we say someone was ‘treated like a criminal,’ what we mean to say is that he or she was treated as less than human, like a shameful creature” (pg. 141). Criminals are treated as if they are less than humans. From the moment, they are handcuffed and to the second they are released from jail, criminals are no longer seen as an honest citizen. Their basic rights as a Citizen of the United States are taken and forcing them to survive by any means necessary, which often forces them to return to
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 many cultures finding your identity is hard. It is even harder to not be labeled for what you look like in society. Currently, people have changed the way that they judge each other and are judging everyone based on the idea of their ethnicity. As I grew up, who I was as a person did not matter because everyone did not bully me based on the color of my skin. I assumed I was just like everyone else. Although when I became a teen things changed. After 9/11, my race and ethnicity mattered more and people treated me differently because I was labeled as a Muslim.
Michelle Alexander states, “slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen)” (Alexander 197). She also says blackness has changed during different time periods, and these definitions have worked to create a societal consciousness of inferiority to the race as a whole. The symbolic production of race developed through institutional racism, which is the embeddedness of racially discriminatory practices in institutions, laws, and agreed upon values and practices of society. Institutions that were once clearly defined through de jure segregation of the Jim Crow laws, have now changed into de facto systems of oppression that define blackness through mass incarceration.