Mass Incarceration In The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness written by Michelle Alexander discusses the old racial caste systems and the system of mass incarceration, and she uses analogies to show different parallels and similarities between them. Alexander states it is creating a modern racial caste system. She asks where have all the good black men gone, and uses examples like Obama's speech on the black stereotype of fathers who are nowhere to be found. She's explaining how many look into this idea but don't reasonably solve the question. Alexander answers the question by saying they are warehoused in prison; locked in cages.

“The New Jim Crow” Summary “The New Jim Crow” was written by Michelle Alexander based off of her experience working for the ACLU of Oakland in which she saw racial bias in the justice system that constituted people of color second-class citizens; Which is why the comparison had been made to the Jim Crow laws that existed in the nineteenth century. Alexander notes comparisons in white resentment, colorblind language, segregation in neighborhoods, legal discrimination, etc., while the difference are the lack of activism that is shown in response to these injustices. Goes over the entire history of slavery; Documenting the Civil War, the Jim Crow laws, and then the civil rights movement to the War on Drugs that Reagan, in 1980, began in order

Michelle Alexander is a writer and an advocate for civil rights. In her book she writes about the advantages of the civil rights movement, which has been the foundation by the mass imprisonment of African Americans during the war on drugs. She talks about the history of how race evolved from slavery to the civil war and from civil war to the civil rights movement. This definitely attracted unwanted attention from conservative politicians. Mass imprisonment was the portal to Michelle Alexander’s “New Jim Crow”.

In addition, many will claim that if black people want to make it ‘better for themselves’, that they must work harder to stay out the prison system. While that could apply, the reason that the prison system is overflowing with black bodies is that the system was designed to target black people in the first place. Often enough, cops are targeting poorer neighborhoods that are at capacity with people, most of them usually being people of color. Because of this, as stated previously, more of the arrests are of people of color. To battle this system that keeps minorities down, it must be reconstructed, eliminating racial bias throughout the court and judicial system, police officers and many others.

In Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow she states that there is a new racial caste system—mass incarceration—in America. Alexander argues that the prior racial caste system, Jim Crow, has not ended—it’s merely been redesigned. Alexander’s main argument is that in this current era of colorblindness, it is not permissible to discriminate on the basis of race hence mass incarceration labels people of color as criminals and then uses all the practices that were “supposedly left behind”. Alexander uses the term racial caste because mass incarceration, like Jim Crow and slavery, were systems that denoted a stigmatized racial group and forced them into a permanent inferior position by law.

Their desperation leads them back to their criminal ways. In addition, criminals influence their children negatively because they are more likely to follow their fathers steps. The cycle creates a racial hierarchy because black men are continuously put in prison and therefore when they are out they are seen as criminals which puts them in the under class. As a result in the introduction of “The New Jim Crow,” Alexander states “Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied to participate in our electoral democracy.”

African-Americans are disproportionately imprisoned by discriminatory laws and deprived of their civil rights by our supposed democracy. This country’s criminal justice system still has not escaped the influence of racial prejudice. The criminal injustice system has transformed enslavement and institutionalized the violence and horror of previous generations, as slaves are no longer held in captivity on plantations, but rather in

(Michelle Alexander, 2010:58) The three strikes law targeted the communities affluent with minority groups. At the turn of the 21st century the majority that entered the prison system were African Americans and Latinos. (Michelle Alexander, 2010) The reason behind mass incarceration was due to the crack down on the deteriorating communities where the majority of minorities lived. Authors Scott Ehlers, Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg of Still Striking Out: Ten Years of California’s Three Strikes (2004) report that African Americans in prison because of the three strike law is higher per every 100,000 African American than Whites and Latinos in California. (U.S. Census Bureau

Although studies prove that all ethnicities use drugs at about the same rate, the drug laws are enforced overwhelmingly against people of color. Alexander posits that this is not an accident and, rather, the war on drugs is purposefully the latest incarnation of America’s racial caste system. The language had to change because discrimination again a person based on color is illegal; however, Alexander lays out a plethora of evidence to show that drug-war rhetoric is used to oppress people of color the exact same way as Jim Crow laws once were. Instead, of explicit discriminatory laws, Fourth Amendment rights were disintegrated in the name of drug interdiction; there was a rise in exploitation of asset-forfeiture laws; and police forces appear

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.

Over the weekend, I watched the powerful Netflix Documentary”13th”, which addressed the loopholes outlined in the 13th Amendment, which allowed a form of slavery to continue through convict leasing of African-Americans, particularly the men. I learned that many Anglo-Americans in the 21st Century are misinformed or uninformed about racism today believing that it is a figment of the African-American community’s imagination. They are under the impression that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended racism. However, the reality for the African-American community is that racism is present in the 21st Century America, but repackaged to support the ideology of “The New Jim Crow Justice”, the mass incarceration of people of color.

Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.

As a result of the increasing animosity of law enforcement authority and justice officials within our society, it has become apparent that the time for Congressional action is now to aid in calming the social fire storm of recent social anti-police movements, increased deadly ambushes upon unsuspecting police officers, and hateful rhetoric in the form of rebellious movements. So where should our nation’s leaders begin? Professor Paul George Cassell J.D. professor of Law at the University of Utah and former Unites States federal Judge suggests by starting with a reexamination of congressionally mandated mandatory minimum sentencing. In Cassell’s publication titled “Sense and Sensibility in Mandatory Minimum Sentencing” Cassell argues the unreasonableness of forcing mandatory minimum sentencing upon state courts when oftentimes, the punishment far exceeds the severity and/or social impact of the crime. As he explains within the text, “In practice, statutory minimums can distort the processes and outcomes of the federal system.

Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.

Doors are shut at every turn. There are arguments that the War on Drugs has not disproportionately affected Black communities. This argument suggests that the impact of the War on Drugs on Black communities is not due to systemic racism, but rather a result of higher rates of drug use and criminal activity in those communities.