The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

There are many historical parallels between Jim Crow laws and mass incarceration. Both of these systems were made “due to a desire among white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and racial bias of poor and working class whites for political or economic gain” (Alexander 191). Segregation laws were made to deflect social tensions from whites to blacks. Another example is making laws more discriminative. “In the Jim Crow era whites competed by passing harsher laws to keep blacks in prisons. Currently legislators looking to make drug laws harsher to incarcerate more blacks and latinos.” The most obvious parallel between the Jim Crow laws and mass incarceration is the legalization of discrimination. During the Jim Crow era blacks were denied the right to vote by poll taxes, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses. The fifteenth amendment states “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote should not be denied on the account of race, color or previous condition of servitude” (Alexander 192). African Americans were not able to pay poll taxes or pass literacy tests, yet if a white male could not pass these hurdles he could still possibly be able to vote due to the

Michelle Alexander writes and speaks about the 3 caste systems slavery, Jim Crow Laws, and mass incarceration. She asserts that racial separation has not gone away but rather morphed into present mass incarceration. Racial segregation has taken a new form and exists in prison systems and in socio-economic ways Caste system locks people up literally virtually. Alexander writes, “Jim Crow and mass incarceration have similar political origins. As described in chapter 1, both caste systems were born, in part, due to a desire among white elites to exploit the resentments, vulnerabilities, and racial biases of poor and working-class whites for political or economic gain. Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate and strategic effort to deflect anger and hostility that had been brewing against the white elite away from them and toward African Americans.” ( Page 191) The largest incarceration rate in the world. 6 to 10 times greater than that of other industrialized nations, and the US has the largest incarceration rates . The war on drugs began at a time when drug use was actually on the decline, but government begins targeting black men through war on drugs as a system of social control.

Many Americans live with the idea that the days of racism are far behind us; however, the film The House I Live In, directed by Eugene Jarecki 's, and the book The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, state otherwise. Although the United States holds five percent of the world’s population, it is responsible for a fourth of the world’s prisoners. More than the majority of these prisoners are of color. (Jarecki 2012; Alexander 2012, 189) Therefore, the statistics contradict the U.S.’s long-held ideal of freedom and equality. This large prisoner population has been a consequence of the War on Drugs—a war that has not only locked up millions of African Americans but also given them a permanent second-class status. Both the video and the book

In this book The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander gives a look at history racism of African-Americans in relations to slavery and brings us to into modern day racism. Not racism as a form of calling people names or by the means of segregation which would be considered overt racism condemned by society but by colorblindness and by a racial caste system. Alexander argues African-Americans are being discriminated against in the form of mass incarceration. “Mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the larger web of laws, rules, polices, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison” (Alexander 2012, pg 14). Upon reading The New Jim Crow I believe African –

Phillis Wheatley is a black, African slave, female poet, and then Christian American (Acton/ American Literature). The life of Phillis is attractive, some painful and some pleasant (poetry foundation). At that time, black skin people cannot be educated while she was American Christian and educated. Wheatley was a model of all black skin people or those were persecuted (Acton/ American Literature). She is the owner of the first published poems book in the colonies at 1773 after brought her from Africa to America; by that Wheatley was the first slave and third American woman do that (Biography). Indeed, Phillis is not her real name, but it is the ship's name which carried her to Boston; she used it until she died. Wheatley did not only change

Mass Incarceration of African American men has become a social injustice of our time. It can also be proclaimed to be known as a civil rights issue of our time. From the first time Africans were taken from their homeland and stripped of all human rights to become slaves, they- or we perhaps- have never truly possessed any real social justice. What does mass incarceration really mean to our black America? How does it affect our communities? When we really look at it, mass incarceration means a lot more than being placed in the back of a police car with handcuffs clinching your bones. It means a lot more than sitting in a jail or prison cell waiting for your time to be served.

bell hooks, renowned black feminist and cultural critic criticizes the lack of racial awareness in her essay, Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination (1992). ‘bell hooks’ is written in lower case to convey that the substance of her work reigns more important than the writer. From a marginalized perspective, hooks argues that sites of dominance, not otherness is problematic and critiques the lack of attention that white scholars pay to the representation of whiteness in the black imagination. Critical feminist scholars Peggy McIntosh and Ruth Frankenberg identify their own whiteness as a dominant discourse, but share a critical departure from hooks with the notion of whiteness as terror. hooks aim is not to reverse racism, but discuss her position to authentically inform readers about how she experiences racism. Furthermore, systems of oppression are manufactured by human thought and thus the site of the Other is always produced as a site of difference. Gender, race, sex, class, disability, and geography are situated differently in social structure, but dominant groups assume they share the same reality though they cannot experience it. In consequence, the Other cannot hold a singularized identity of their own and the binary structure succeeds in containing racialized bodies in place. What happens to those bodies when they cross boundaries of the binary? hooks recounts being routinely disciplined back into place when crossing the border; however, dominant white

Upon reading Michelle Alexander’s book, it became very clear the point she was working to get across. To be brutally honest, I was not at all interested in reading this book. I only chose this book because it was cheaper than the only other book the class was given the option to read. The title itself explains it all; The New Jim Crow. Judging from the title alone, I assumed this was just another book on theories of conspiracy. Ways the government or “the man” was trying to keep a “brother” or a “sister” down. Personally, I don’t like to believe that our federal government could or would do something secretive that was against the will or the best interest of the American people no matter their race or gender, which is why I prefer not to give

In the text “New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander argues her belief of control of African Americans, more specifically males, through a racial caste system. To begin her argument, Michelle starts by speaking of a man named Jarvious Cotton, who, like his ancestors, cannot vote, but not because he is a slave, but because he has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole. She believes that “in each generation, new tactics have been used for achieving the same goals” and that one of the primary goals of the founding fathers was to deny African Americans full U.S. citizenship (1). Michelle believes that this goal has been maintained because today and throughout history, a high percentage black men in the United States have been legally barred

One of the most, if not the most, controversial and heated debates following the United States independence was regarding the institution of slavery. In the introduction to his book Half Slave and Half Free, Bruce Levine quotes Carl Schurzs’ observation as the “slave question not being a mere occasional quarrel between two sections of the country divided by a geographic line, but a great struggle between two antagonistic systems of social organization (p.15)”. The Nouthern states that allowed slavery benefited from the agricultural labor that those slaves provided. The Northern states that prohibited slavery did so for moral and pragmatic reasons; they felt it was morally wrong to deny another human any form of rights, and did not like the economic advantage it gave to the Southern states. With the use of slavery largely concentrated in the South, the movement against it came from the North and was led by abolitionists; those who were committed to bringing an end to the practice. In this course we have defined “Practice” as the conduct of policy, such as opinion, election, parties and law-making (Lecture). We define Policy as the goals of politics, those being sovereignty, defense, and a collective well-being (Lecture). The following analytical essay will examine antislavery sentiment and practices in the Northern states and the reaction of Southern states. Additionally how the pressures from both sides influenced the Policy of the United States following independence then

The names Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Langston Hughes, Jackie Robinson, Fannie Lou Hamer and Thurgood Marshall are all civil rights heroes, not to be forgotten. However, Jonathan Kozol reveals that the schools he has had experience with that are named after these civil rights champions are actually dishonoring the dead. Professor Gary Orfield indicates that schools that are comprised mostly of minority students, less than 1% white, are essentially “apartheid schools.” There is a reciprocal action, “To give up on integration….requires us to consciously and deliberately accept segregation”(Orfield and Eaton, 20). It is noted that some of the reasons New York has this problem is due to government enforced school boundaries, housing segregation and non-enforced fair housing laws. Thus, the schools are named after the heroes in a show of respect and honor, yet their segregation is a dishonor to the namesakes. The racial isolation of the students leaves them feeling hidden, unwanted and inferior. This is a dishonor to those students and the people who fought so persistently for equal opportunities.

In the book, Up from slavery, Booker T. Washington, the former slave who wrote the book on his experiences, spent the majority of his life in the “after emancipation” era. He was a slave only up to the 10th year of his life, and he did not experience the many beatings that many of the older slaves had. He enjoyed learning, and he “fought” his way into college to do so. He had a family, and he was able to live with his mother and siblings, but he never knew his father, who was said to be a white man. When he was freed from slavery, he still experienced the scorn and hardships of the “separate but equal” mind set of those around him.

The Civil Rights movement was one biggest fights against Racism and Segregation during the 1960s. During this time many African Americans were persecuted and punished for wanting basic human rights, and rights the whites obtained. African Americans were victims to abuse, verbal and physical harassment and in many cases murder. White supremacists wanted all the power and when African Americans fought back they were given Jim Crow laws. These laws considered the blacks and whites “equal” but separate. This wasn’t the case though, African Americans always got the shorter end of the stick. Government, schools, and many white supremacists didn’t want African Americans to get an education because then they wouldn 't “know their place”. Fighting for a better

Karin Kamp wrote, “Black Lives Matter evolved from a hashtag to an online social network to an on-the-ground political network that now spans the globe,”(Kam) When Karin Kamp said this it asked the question, do we really understand how big this conflict has become? Earlier this year, four people kidnapped a young man and brutally tortured him, all while streaming it on Facebook. They did this in a span of 3 or 4 days. People are calling this crime the “Black Lives Matter Kidnapping”. The videos show horrible and gruesome things that were done to the man, including forcing the man drink toilet water. While this is happening the attackers were saying hurtful words to the man, Donald Trump and many others. The police suggest this event has no

At the time of the Black Civil Rights Movement, the Jim Crow laws kept the coloured in captivity not too unlike slavery. They were in their own country brought there by white men who now disowned and segregated them from the community. However, the coloured still had to go into court. Another problem was that the Justice System adhered to stereotypes of the coloured. This would mean that if a white man and a coloured man were both suspects the coloured man would be the most likely culprit. However, there is a common misconception that the Black Civil Rights Movement changed the Justice System where really the Justice System today is just as bad as it was a century