Civilize Them With A Stick Analysis

Less than 4% of the total student population enrolled in America’s colleges and universities (one of the smallest subgroups based on race/ethnicity and gender.) According to the Schott Foundation, the graduation rate of Black males in CT is between 51%, whereas White males in CT have an 83% graduation rate—a 32% gap. Moreover, the achievement gap between Black women and Black men is the lowest male-to female ratio among all racial/ethnic subgroups. (Strayhorn 1). The disproportionate and devastating failure of Black males in the educational system has further ramifications in our social system as black males are over-represented in the criminal justice system: “African-American males represent approximately 8.6 percent of the nation’s K-12 public school enrollment but make up about 60 percent of all incarcerated youth” (Smith 2005). In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of the academic crisis of adolescent black males, one must examine the research findings surrounding the Black-White achievement gap, black male standardized test scores, black male literacy achievement, and the socio-cultural achievement barriers that obscure black males’ self-perception of themselves as readers. “According to many standardized assessments, educators in the U.S.

Racism in the United States has not remained the same over time since its creation. Racism has shifted, changed, and shaped into unrecognizable ways that fit into the fabric of the American society to render it nearly invisible to the majority of Americans. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness shatters this dominantly held belief. The New Jim Crow makes a reader profoundly question whether the high rates of incarceration in the United States is an attempt to maintain blacks as an underclass. Michelle Alexander makes the assertion that “[w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it” using the criminal justice system and colorblind rhetoric. (Alexander 2). The result is a population of Black and Latino men who face barriers and deprivation of rights as did Blacks during the Jim Crow era. Therefore, mass incarceration has become the new Jim Crow.

Alexander’s main premises focuses on the large majority of African American men imprisoned today, as she reflects on the direct result of it that “young black men today may be just as likely to suffer discrimination in employment, housing, public benefits. And jury service as a black man in the Jim Crow era- discrimination that is perfectly legal, because it is based on one’s criminal record.” (Alexander, 181) Alexander points out not only how a significant portion of black men are ending up in prison, but how when released they face discrimination because of their criminal record making them unable to rehabilitate their lives and putting them back into the ghetto. Discrimination is a main factor which puts people of color in the penal system, and a main factor which when getting out keeps them from changing their lifestyle for the better.

Systematic racism within education Institutions, such as the lack of adequate funding as well as subtle discrimination, continues to be the root of the problem that plagues this nation. Even though segregation was abolished in 1964, the lingering effects that remain are significant and cannot be passively mended. Although it is tempting to think that this prejudice is caused by a select few and not the many, it is clear that this problem holds more depth. Recent studies conducted by the National Education Studies (NEA) have proven that even in school’s African American students are often times targeted and punished at a significantly higher rate when compared to their white peers. The study states “Black students make up almost 40 percent of all school expulsions [in the] nation, and more than two thirds of students referred to police from schools are either black or Hispanic” (Blacks: Education Issues). This study conducted by the Department of Education, cabinet-level department of the United States

The New Jim Crow is a book written by Michelle Alexander that discusses the rebirth of a caste-like system and race-related issues in the United States specific to African-American males and mass incarceration. Racial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the New Jim Crow, is a scholarly article that examines and critiques mass incarceration as well as the analogy of the Criminal Justice system being the “new Jim Crow.”

The first article I am going to focus on, Foreword: Addressing the Real World of Racial Injustice in the Criminal Justice System, was written by Donna Coker . Primarily, the article talks about the statistical evidence of in justice regarding racial profiling in policing and imprisonment. Official incarceration data speaks for itself when it shows that although African Americans make up twelve percent of the U.S. population, they make up of almost half of the population incarcerated for crimes (Coker, 2003). Researchers with the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimate that twenty-eight percent of African Americans will be imprisoned at one point in their life (Coker, 2003). A study conducted by the Sentencing Project reports that nearly one in three African American men between the ages of twenty and twenty-nine are under the supervision of the criminal justice system on any given day (Coker

There are large racial disparities in incarceration and related detainments for African Americans. They are more likely to be under the supervision of the Department of Corrections than any other racial or ethnic group (H.West, Sabol, & Greenman, 2010). Institutional racism is believed to be the reason why African Americans, especially males, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. On balance, the public believes that discrimination against black people is based on the prejudice of the individual person, correlates to the discrimination built into the nation’s laws and institutions (Pew’s Research Center, 2017). This belief is actually supported through several experimental studies that provide evidence that African Americans are to be seen as more criminal and threatening than others thus more likely to be arrested or even shot (Greenwald, Oakes, & Hoffman, 2003). Racism within the criminal justice system very much exists and is still relevant.

The article digs deeper into the problem of incarceration and the decreasing concentration in school by African American students, which has become a problem in the attainment of education in the U.S. There is a gap in the number of whites graduating at the end of schooling and the Blacks with the dropout increasing each

“Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students.” (Steven Hsieh, 2014) Until now, we are still finding unequal treatment from school in American Society from different aspects, such as school discipline, early learning, college readiness and teacher equity. However, education is more than learning from books. Education enables individuals potential to utilize human mind and open doors of opportunities to obtain knowledge. But the US educational system doesn’t serve the majority of children properly and gaps remain between white and black students. What’s more, nowadays, a lot of schools only treat education as a curriculum and test scores; ignoring the stimulus of curiosity. Therefore, “Between the World and Me” is a book written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, who weaves his own personal, historical, and intellectual development into his ruminations on how to live in a black body in America. In this book, Coates writes about education and pleasures of his own educational experience in Howard University. Although bad education hides the truth and restricts students’ ideas, education also contains pleasures, which broaden people’s mind, help people build their own thoughts, and prevent people from prison. As a result, there are more pleasures in American education that positively impact on black body than dangers.

African American boys are doubly displaced among society. Ann Arnett Ferguson says, “they are not seen as childlike but adultified; as black males they are denied the masculine dispensation constituting white males as being “naturally naughty” and are discerned as willfully bad”(page 80). These African American boys are thought of being two things, either a criminal or an endangered species. They are not allowed to be naughty by nature according to society, but rather there naughtiness is a sign of vicious, inherent, insubordinate behavior. African americans are seen as endangered victims, which makes them criminals. Ferguson states, “It is their own maladaptive and inappropriate behavior that causes African americans to self-destruct”(page 82). There are two versions of childhood that are contradictory to each other. A real child would be seen as a “little plants” ready to grow up accordingly which is what white men were like to educators. On the other hand the African American boys were seen as children who are powerful, self centered, and have an agenda of their own. These black boys are seen as adults from such a young age, they don’t have time to be young and grow up because others make it seem like they are already fully grown. This drives them in the path to do bad things and make bad decisions.

Our past is full of cases that represent the inequality of the criminal justice system. In the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Plessy V Ferguson, in 1896 the court upheld racial segregation and made the separate but equal the standard doctrine of the United States until 1954, when the Supreme Court handed down the decision in Brown v Board of Education which made the racial segregation illegal and highlighted the protections offered in the fourteenth amendment as it relates to equal protection. Despite the 14th Amendment 's promise of life and liberty under the law, this group of Americans found themselves subject to another law, known as the "Jim Crow Laws." These were a group of laws passed primarily in the southern states during reconstruction and lasting until around 1965, were established to make sure that the whites were treated differently than the blacks, in everyday life, including the criminal justice system. Even though the Jim Crow era has passed by, we unfortunately have come to the conclusion that we have just entered a new era of Jim Crow. “We are arguably no longer under Jim Crow or de jure discrimination; however, unfortunately and regrettably, we are presently realizing manifest de facto discrimination, or the new Jim Crow” (Durrant, 2015). Statistics show that over 40 percent of students who are expelled from school today are African American and over 70 percent of students who are referred to law enforcement for criminal activity are

“The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol, it is estimated that three out of four young black men (and nearly all those in the poorest neighborhoods) can expect to serve time in prison” (Alexander, 2012). The numbers tell the story better than words can: black people are more likely to go to prison than any other race in the United States, shown by the fact that more than 60% of the prison population is composed of people of color (The Sentencing Project, 2016). These statistics can be traced back to several different cause, including the Era of Jim Crow and the War on Drugs, both of which led to higher policing in minority areas.

Taking into consideration my early childhood, youth and adolescence, I could say that I was surrounded by people, who were friendly and shared common cultural values. However, with the hindsight at my whole life, I could say why the sense of institutional racism touches me so deeply. I was raised by my mother and my grandmother, both of whom could not read and write. Thus, for the illiterate people there were no chances to have higher status in the society. The only way to survive for them was hard physical work. Institutional racism, as a form of oppression, is more consequential and involves policies and acts that affect a large number of people. Life of my family is only one example of its impact. Even though, a lot of time has passed since then, the most recent incidents with Rodney King, Trayvon Martin and George Zimmer, illustrate how a black man continues to be viewed as a menace to society in America (Blumenfeld, 2010).

As Charon explains this, “we are socialized to accept our own place in society (Charon, 2013).” This could be interpreted to mean that low-income neighborhoods should produce low-income families, college educated parents should encourage secondary education, or that those who disobey the law must stay at the bottom of society. To again analyze data, African-Americans youth are more likely to commit crimes due to stereotyping and self-worth (as cited in Cohen, Garcia, Apfel, & Master, 2006). These minority youth are succumbing to a failure to understand their worth, which requires a different solution that prison rehabilitation programs. Charon states that, “most who try do not succeed, not because of lack of effort or intelligence alone, but because real opportunity is denied by factors related to...minority positions (Charon, 2013).” With more minorities becoming convicted of crimes, the feeling of entrapment within the bottom rungs of society increases, and the cycle of the criminal justice system

Institutional racism has solidified its position into various aspects of American society. It has installed itself into employment practices, all levels of education, healthcare, housing, politics and the criminal justice system. Institutional racism has made some subtle changes to replace the boldness of slavery and Jim Crow. However, in educational institutions the effects of racism and discrimination are so delicate they typically go unnoticed by students of color. Individual racism usually happens on the personal level where the prejudice is expressed either consciously or unconsciously while there is some form of interpersonal encounter. When it comes to institutional racism it is similar to the individual concepts, however policies and practices are associated with with the belief of racial dominance of one group over another. It is a powerful system that use race to determine power and privilege(Reynolds et al., 2010). Even after the desegregation of school, educational institution are still separated. In Shelby County where I have lived since 1999 there are schools for minorities, and there are schools for whites. The schools for minorities in the city of Memphis have police officers walking the halls and there no books for learning. There are higher numbers of Whites students enrolled in private, charter, and magnet schools in the more affluent segments of the county. They will be exposed to the advantages of a proper education because of their race and privilege