Mass Incarceration In Michelle Alexanders The New Jim...

Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that reinforced racial segregation in the South between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950’s (Urofsky). The laws mandated segregation of schools, drinking fountains, restrooms, buses, and restaurants. In legal theory, blacks received â€Å"separate but equal† treatment under the law--in actuality, public facilities were nearly always inferior to those for whites, when they existed at all. In addition, blacks were systematically denied the right to vote in most of the rural South through the selective application of literacy tests and other racially motivated criteria (PBS). Despite Jim Crow laws being abolished in 1964 when President Lyndon Johnson†¦show more content†¦It is a status that will follow and affect every ex-offender even after they have served their time in jail. In this case, our criminal-justice system is constantly discriminating against African Ame ricans in order to identify them as felons and take away their rights. Currently, more than two million African Americans are under the control of the criminal-justice system--in prison or jail, on probation or parole. Felon-disenfranchisement laws bar thirteen percent of African American men from casting a vote, thus making mass incarceration an effective tool of voter suppression--one reminiscent of the poll taxes and literacy of the Jim Crow era. Employers routinely discriminate against an applicant based on criminal history, as do landlords. In some major urban areas, more than half of working-age African American men have criminal record and are subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. These men are permanently locked into an inferior, second-class status, or caste, bylaw and custom. As Alexander argues, we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Alexander states that the single greatest contributor to this mass incarceratio n in the United States is the â€Å"war on drugs†. Studies consistently indicate that people of all races use and sell illegal drugs at remarkably similar rates. However, the drug war has been waged almost exclusively in poor communities of color. Therefore, an overflow of black andShow MoreRelatedThe New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander1313 Words   |  6 Pages The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness examine the Jim Crow practices post slavery and the mass incarceration of African-American. The creation of Jim Crows laws where used as a tool to promote segregation among the minority and white American. Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass takes a look at Jim Crow laws and policies were put into place to block the social progression African-American from the post-slavery to the civilRead MoreThe New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander1316 Words   |  6 Pages The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness examine the Jim Crow practices post slavery and the mass incarceration of African-American. The creation of Jim Crows laws were used as a tool to promote segregation among the minority and white American. Michelle Alexander’s the new Jim Crow Mass takes a look at Jim Crow laws and policies were put into place to block the social progression African-American from the post-slavery to theRead MoreThe New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration1361 Words   |  6 PagesBook Review Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness The premise of the ‘The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness’ by Michelle Alexander, is to refute claims that racism is dead and argue that the War on Drugs and the federal drug policy unfairly targets communities of color, keeping a large majority of black men of varying ages in a cycle of poverty and behind bars. The author proves that racism thrives by highlighting theRead MoreMass Incarceration Is Defined As The Imprisonment Of A Large Amount Of People1439 Words   |  6 PagesAt the simplest level, mass incarceration is defined as the imprisonment of a large amount of people. However, that does not tell the whole story. The majority of people incarcerated are minorities, and although mass incarceration began as a system of unjust racial and social control, today it continues for many political reasons including government grants, swaying voter opinion, and for-profit prison revenue. The United States incarcerates more people, per capita, than any other nation in theRead MoreMichelle Alexander s The New Jim Crow1495 Words   |  6 Pages Baker, Anderson, and Dorn (1992) talk â€Å"A Critical Thinking Approach† giving the readers six guidelines to follow when critically assessing any literary work, all of which can apply to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. The first guideline is about how accessible is her work. Throughout the book, Alexander made her work as clear and concise as she possibly could by explaining certain points over again in a different chapter to make sure that the audience understands whatRead MoreThe New Jim Crow?919 Words   |  4 PagesAt first Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, did not see the prison systems as racially motivated until doing further research. After researching the issue, Alexander found the prison system was a way to oppress African Americans and wrote the novel The New Jim Crow. The New Jim Crow follows the history of the racial caste system and in the novel Alexander comes to the conclusion that the mass incarceration of African A merican is the New Jim Crow, or in other words a new system ofRead MoreThe, Jim Crow And Mass Incarceration1056 Words   |  5 Pages 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, â€Å"Jim Crow and mass incarceration have similar political origins. As described in chapter 1, both caste systems were bornRead MoreThe New Jim Crow Law1014 Words   |  5 PagesMass incarceration is known as a net of laws, policies, and rules that equates to the American criminal justice system. This series of principles of our legal system works as an entrance to a lifelong position of lower status, with no hope of advancement. Mass incarceration follows those who are released from prison through exclusion and legalized discrimination, hidden within America. The New Jim Crow is a modernized version of the original Jim Crow Laws. It is a modern racial caste system designedRead MoreThe New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration Essay795 Words   |  4 Pagesasked to write a reflection on discussed The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness which is a book written by Michelle Alexander a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate and Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State University. Michelle Alexander states that although we made tremendous progress with Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s by unifying as a race and fought to seemingly ended the old Jim Crow era by the passing of laws such as the 1965 voting act and Brown V.SRead MoreThe New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration1081 Words   |  5 Pages Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness outlines how the criminal justice system has systematically designed new methods of discriminating against African Americans. The book advocates for racial justice, specifically, for African Americans and contends they [African Americans] were targeted and subsequently incarcerated, by white voters and public officials, through the War on Drugs campaign. President Reagan and his Administration exploited racial