Analysis Of The New Jim Crow

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander maps out the parallels between the old Jim Crow system and the new racial caste system of mass incarceration. There are many profound similarities between these two systems, such as historical parallels, closing the courthouse doors, and racial segregation.

In today’s modern world, many people would be surprised to find out that there is still a racial caste system in America. After witnessing the election of a black president, people have started believing that America has entered a post-racial society. This is both a patently false and dangerous mindset. The segregation and stigma of race is still very much alive in our society. Instead of a formalized institution such as slavery or Jim Crow, America has found a new way to continue the marginalization of blacks by using the criminal justice system. In Michelle Alexander’s book “ The New Jim Crow”, she shows how America’s “ War on Drugs “ has become a tool of racial segregation and how the discretionary enforcement of drug laws has

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander develops a compelling analogy on how mass incarceration is similar to the Jim Crow era, and is a “race-making institution.” She begins her work with the question, “Where have all the black men gone?” (Alexander, 178) She demonstrates how the media and Obama have failed to give an honest answer to this question, that the large majority of them or in prison. She argues that in order to address this problem, we must be honest about the fact that this is happening, and the discrimination with the African American communities that is putting them there.

Though most citizens in the United States would agree that the prison system in the U.S. needs to be amended, do they see the prison system as a way to enforce the racial caste system? At 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 American is the New Jim Crow, or in other words a new system of black oppression. Though some might try to refute the idea of mass incarceration of African Americans, Alexander offers a well thought out argument with substantial evidence and data to compellingly link Jim Crow and mass incarceration and proves that it is an issue that should be on the radar of all U.S. citizens.

In the new proactive book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander dives into the not so complicated racial issues that plague this country that we tend to ignore. In all of history, African Americans have had to constantly fight for their freedoms and the right to be considered a human being in this society. It’s very troubling looking back and seeing where we have failed people in this country. At the turn of the century, when people began to think that we had left our old ways behind, this book reminds us that we are wrong. Racism is still alive today in every way, just in different forms.

In the book The New Jim Crow: “Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” is written by Michelle Alexander talks about issues the racial caste and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander argues that even Jim crow is over, but there’s still injustices in people of color communities. In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes many social problems make African American people controlled by institutions. The author compares Jim Crow with mass incarceration is a form of controlling black Americans as Jim Crow law. Through Michelle Alexander's book, we can understand her argument that mass incarceration is a new form of legal discrimination just like Jim Crow law. The criminal justice system is biased toward the powers of privileges. Mass incarceration in America is “the new Jim Crow”, a new form of social control because the racial caste system segregates people away from mainstream society.

Michelle Alexander begins her story of “The New Jim Crow”, as she provides her thoughts and arguments on Chapter one of “the rebirth of caste”. The Chapter explains the myths provided towards slavery after the civil war, as black people weren’t exactly free. Whites were furious and felt the issue of the law was unnecessary, which led to a continuous fight to revert the law to their only source of income. African Americans were finally given a break; however the actions of white southern began to cause further issues towards the development in the United States. Chapter two “The Lockdown” than proceeded as racism began to grow towards the law enforcement, and the development of Southern whites creating the Ku Klux Klan. Alexander argues about the crackdown of unreasonable searches occurred under law enforcement, and how African Americans are targeted.

The criminal justice system in America is a system designed to work in three distinct steps. The first being to fairly identify those breaking the law, second, create a process through which to both punish and rehabilitate criminals, and lastly integrate them back into society. The current system typically goes unquestioned, as those in the system seem to be deserving of what ever happens while they are in it, even once they have served their prison sentence. It is only upon deeper inspection that we begin to realize the discrimination and unfair tactics used to introduce certain groups of society into the criminal justice system and proceed to trap them there. This is the issue addressed in Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and it is through arrests, sentencing and further upon release from jail that this oppressive system is created and maintained.

The New Jim Crow is a book that gives a look on how discrimination is still and at some post more prevalent today than it was in the 1850s. Author Michelle Alexander dives into the justice system and explains how a lot of practices and beliefs from slavery times are just labeled differently now. The labeling creates legal discrimination, but most people over look it because it is hidden with words such as “criminals” or “felon” in order to legally enslave and segregate a certain type of people. This discrimination is located in multiple areas of the U.S. government. Alexander goes through the ways of how discrimination is still prevalent in employment, the housing market, education, and basic voting rights. Alexander

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, by Michelle Alexander published in 2012, is a 261 page book detailing how mass incarceration has become the new form of legalized discrimination.

Baldus study was based on more than two thousand murder cases in Georgia, and “the study found that defendants charged with killing white victims received the death penalty eleven times more often than defendants charged with killing black victims.” (Alexander p.110) Baldus Study was significant to this chapter because it shows patterns of discrimination and how the government and police enforcement use race to harass African Americans.

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2010.

It is painfully obvious throughout Alexander’s book that our criminal justice system works to sweep through colored neighborhoods, lock them up, and label them as second-class citizens, making the New Jim Crow color-minded.

What if you woke up one day and everything became separate? School, sports, and even parks; would you be able to cope with Jim Crow laws? Though many whites opposed the idea of integration and supported Jim Crow laws, many citizens of color fought for the right to use the same restroom, water fountain, go to the same schools, and even to intermarry. Jim Crow laws were instituted to separate those of color and whites, because of this, many blacks were discriminated against in social areas and job and school opportunities.

The book “Jim Crow`s Counterculture” is developed around the issues of racial discrimination, and development of music as a reaction to employment activism. Through the book development of blues music is understood as detailed journey taken by African Americans and motivated by social factors. Its thematic concepts are built around a musical biography. The author has an interest in blues music genre, and its development relationship with blacks and whites communities. He adopted a critical approach towards racial differentiation and political identity. According to Lawson (175), blues artist soon realized that nationality was a better approach to ethnicity than racial limitations. The blues scholar approached