Jim Crow Culture

Jim Crow racism was the belief that whites are superior to non-whites. This idea generated rules of Jim Crow racism that mainly caused segregation between whites and non-whites. The segregation of restaurants, schools, and churches were because of the idea of Jim Crow racism. It was the social norm to wear black face and yell racial slurs at non-whites. Black face was worn by a white man with the man usually mocking people of color about their race and behavior, by yelling racial slurs. Black face was usually seen on television or theater. The oppression of non-whites was horrid because they faced various consequences when they broke a Jim Crow law, such as lynching or hanging. The use of Jim Crow racism has reduced over the past eighty

“For the next several decades, at least, we will suffer this racial future of colorblind white dominance” Ian Haney-López argues in his book White by Law, however America today, though colorblind as America may be, is in a much better place than the times of the Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. These laws restricted the freedoms of African Americans living in the United States that just became free men and women after the turn of the Civil War.

Jim Crow laws were a complex system of laws and customs that separated races in the South. They were very restrictive to African American people, and lenient to Caucasian people.

The term Jim Crow originated in American popular culture, specifically in a stage performance, a mocking imitation of a black plantation slave by Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice (1808–1860), a white entertainer. In the tradition of minstrelsy, Rice blackened his face with burned cork or black wax, wore ragged clothes as a costume, shuffled as he danced, and sang. A popular little ditty, “Jump Jim Crow” was a centerpiece of an emerging American popular culture. Popularized, the character Jim Crow and his stage counterpart Zip Coon—an urban dandy from the North—caricatured African Americans as foolish, dim, lazy, sneaky, incompetent, untrustworthy, dishonorable, and without the strength of character required to be an

Jim Crow era was a time of struggle for all African Americans. White supremacy and discrimination was established by Jim Crow laws that lasted from the end of Reconstruction until the 1960’s. The laws caused African Americans to be at a disadvantage politically and economically.

African Americans were already being beaten and ran out of their neighborhoods and homes, but things took a turn for the worse when the Jim Crow Laws were passed. With Jim Crow Laws passed, it was now legal to treat people of color worse than whites. There was now a low enforcing racial segregation.

Working from sunrise till sunset, with hardly any breaks in between, life for slaves was tumultuous Provided with the bare minimum, African Americans fought with teeth and bone in order to hold on. Slaves were one of the biggest personal assets any plantation owner could hold in the South and they were considered to be of utmost value. Families were torn apart only because of the hunger and selfishness of white slaveholders to make a profit. For generations, African Americans were expected to keep quiet and their head down as their rights, privileges, and freedom vanished before their very eyes. The Jim Crow laws were enacted by the democratic party in order to enforce racial segregation. By completely separating and isolating the two races, life was dramatically changed even after the Civil War and the abolishment of slavery. African Americans were persecuted not only socially, but also economically, and environmentally as a result of the racism and inequalities created by the Jim Crow system.

People think that the racist ways of the old Jim Crow have ended. They think that colorblindness is a thing. They think that our law enforcement, businesses, and housing owners do not pick and choose things based on the color of someone’s skin. They believe that color mindedness has ended. They think that the harsh racist ways of our country has come to an end. That is not even close to being the case. Though certain things have changed, such as how old Jim Crow was a little more upfront and open with its racism and hatred, there is still racial inequality and prejudice in our country.

It was the Golden Age! We were living what was known as the ‘American Dream.’ Freedom, equality and opportunity for all. When the troops returned from war six years ago, this dream deviated and society became so fixated on obtaining the ‘perfect American household.’ It was inevitable. But who decides what is perfect? Who does perfect cater for? With the war won and over, and the promise of American prosperity on the horizon, it was merely the idealistic thing to do; getting married, beginning a family and living in the suburbs. Essentially you were displaced from society if you didn’t follow these conventions.

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness raises awareness on the American racial caste system, heavily due to the crisis of high imprisonment of black men. As a former director for ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, and currently an associate professor of law at Ohio State University, Alexander appears informative on the issue, though she wasn’t always. Although Alexander is a black woman, she admits she didn’t consider a racial caste system existing in America until a decade ago. Thus, her objective for The New Jim Crow is to inform society of the racial caste system that effects hundreds of thousands of poor, ill-educated, black men, and concealed accounts that are similar to the suffering of their ancestors.

Modern society has implanted the belief among its citizens that color nor race play a factor in the decisions that are made each and every day. However, as history has shown this is solely untrue, a social/racial hierarchy has been constructed to define a clear division between the white and minority races, especially African-Americans. White men have held their role as “superior” at the top of the hierarchy, followed by lower class whites, and blacks have been confined at the bottom. Society has instilled the idea that racism and inequality has been “overcome” and eliminated. Thus, it does not seek to confine blacks in certain position in this self-created social hierarchy nor does it seek to sit the white race on a pedestal as superior to any other race. However, as one looks at America’s several stages of racism and segregation as the enslavement of African Americans, the creation of the Jim Crow Laws, and now as the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander argues the process of mass incarceration, they have all incarnated the same purposes; to limit the rights of African-Americans, control the minds of passing generations, and continue that fine division between the superior and inferior races. The only difference among the stages is that they have been altered to fit the views of what is acceptable during each time period. In the introduction, Alexander eloquently states her purpose of writing this book as she

Jim Crow and the Race in the South back in 1930’s and now have changed a lot of overtime, with society, public facilities, policemen, and criminal justice and in the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, they show examples where racism was a big problem and where Jim Crow laws existed. I would lean on the part where I believe even though racism still exists, it has changed dramatically over the years for the better, such as; all races can share bathrooms, be in the same restaurants, policemen only law is to arrest the ones who break the law and that goes for all races, not just an individual race, criminal justice is ripe for change again, bringing fairness and reason.

What was it like growing up as an African American in time of Jim Crow? Imagine being a black student walking to school on a warm spring morning in 1958, when suddenly a mob of white kids tackle, and beat you down. “Get rid of this nigger” one of them screams. The fear Terrance Robert felt that day was one of the too many days of discrimination, and abuse that African Americans went through (Terrance, 14).

This essay will argue that white people were violently racist towards African Americans in the south because the threat of them succeeding economically, educationally, and socially created competition for things that whites felt they were entitled to. Jim Crow laws were created as a way to control the success of African Americans and prevent them from reaching their full potential in society. Evidence of their actions proves this in the laws they made, the ways they treated them, and the words said about them. Whites felt entitled to these things because they viewed themselves as “supreme”.

During the first part of the 20th century many ideals began to shift, from the time the people left for school, got a job, or even got married. After The Great Depression and World War II, this shuffled around many things within society painting a homogenous America such were the drop of parenthood, average of women getting married, people born in foreign countries within the population, and among others. The new America