Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness

The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enacted that mandated racial segregation in all public facilities in southern states of the former confederacy. The blacks were said to be “separate but equal” and this separation led to conditions for the blacks that tended to be inferior to those provided for whites. Law-enforced segregation mainly applied to the southern United States whereas northern segregation had patterns of segregation in housing that was enforced by the covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination. For decades, this included discriminatory union practices for decades. The Jim Crow laws segregated public schools, public places, public transportation, restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains. Therefore, it did nothing to bring about social or economic equality.

Let me start by explaining what the Jim Crow Law is, under the Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that whites were the Chosen people, blacks were cursed to be servants, and God

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.

These were a series of laws enacted mostly in the Southern United States in the later half of the 19th century that restricted most of the new privileges granted to African American after the Civil War. The discriminatory Jim Crow laws were enacted to support the notion of racial segregation. They required black and white people to use separate water fountains, public schools, public bathhouses, restaurants, public libraries, and rail cars in public transit. Originally called the Black Codes they later became known as Jim Crow laws, after a familiar minstrel character of the day. The laws became the legal

The Jim Crow Laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. “The most common types of laws forbade intermarriage and ordered business owners and public institutions to keep their black and white clientele separated.”(1) A vast majority of the Southern States agreed upon the Jim Crow Laws, which were slave states. That left some of the Northern States free states which didn’t pass the Jim Crow Laws. The Jim Crow Laws prevented African Americans from doing a lot of things that white americans could do.

After the Civil War, most Southern and Border States deprived the basic rights of African Americans. Jim Crow was a fictitious character created by a white entertainer to ridicule African Americans. The laws were made in an attempt to keep African Americans away from whites after slavery ended (“Examples of Jim Crow”). The Jim Crow laws affected education, health care, and social events. “From Delaware to California, and from North Dakota to Texas, many states (and cities, too) could impose legal punishments on people for consorting with members of another race” (“Jim Crow Laws”). These punishments could be brutal or sometimes fatal.

In the reading The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, it talks about the prison system being overly crowded in the 1970’s. It also talks about how many guards and prison officials are employed by the prisons in rural areas of the country. It mentions that prisons are part of the private sector. It talks about how it is a big economic factor in the economy and that very important people such as former Vice president Dick Cheney have invested millions in private prisons. The reading also talks about the war on drugs, and that most of the people that are in prison is for drug offenses. It also mentions that a lot of low income areas in the big cities have higher crime rates than other parts of the country.

From the 1880’s to the mid 1960’s in North Carolina and other southern states, there was a law called Jim Crow Laws. The name Jim Crow comes from a character from a theatre production where the performer was white, but would have black face makeup on to mock the blacks. These laws were being enforced in North Carolina and many other towns and states. Jim Crow Laws forced racial inequalities towards black people. A black and a white person were forbidden to marry each other. White people were educated at a white school and black people went to a black school. If a black man went to the hospital he would have a black nurse, while a white person would have a white nurse. When boarding the bus a white person may sit anywhere in the front, while a black person was ordered to sit in the very back. Blacks were to drink at separate drinking fountains than the white people used. Black

3) Jim crow laws are racist laws to present racism so that people can not be racist. They were created for that no one can get hurt or be. They were informed tell 1965 because they had a present for african americans to live in the united states.

The ridiculous incarceration rates of blacks is due to a loophole in the system. The first part of the 13th amendment states, “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted,

Jim Crow laws were a set of laws that would Divest the black americans of their basic rights. They were separated from the whites. They had to go to separate schools and had to drink out of separate water fountains as seen in the picture above. This essay is going to show the outrageous things that was done and the laws that started this discrimination

Jim Crow Laws are laws that were put in place to “protect” white people from blacks. The name Jim Crow was created in 1830. It came from a white actor named Thomas Dartmouth. He performed routines as a fictional character named Jim Crow, “a caricature of a clumsy dim witted black slave” (Andrews). In Harper Lee’s book To Kill A Mockingbird, this law was promoted by segregation.

Despite the ending of slavery in 1865, the Jim Crow Laws were a racial caste system made in 1877 for the use of discrimination and slander against black people alike. “ It was a way of life”(Jim Crow Museum). That is right, a way of life, people lived in discrimination every day. There were only a few people who were willing to stand up for what they believed was right like Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, even the Black Panther Party. They all sought after freedom from the chains of segregation. The Jim Crow Laws prevented people from being who they wanted to be when they wanted to be for years. There were public forms of segregation like protests, and newspapers publicizing racial stereotypes towards black people. “Their articles reinforced anti-black stereotypes”(Jim Crow Museum). Just like how major institutions supported the oppression of blacks and not whites.

Alexander’s main point is that this is the New Jim Crow and that our rhetoric of “colorblindness” disguises the reality of a new racial caste system and she have argued strenuously a the central claim made here- namely that something akin to a racial caste system currently exists in the United States. Indeed, if Barack Obama had been become president back then, she have argued that his election marked the nation's triumph over racial caste.My conviction that to be traveled to reach the promised land of racial justice in US, but nothing like Crow has been existed.She explains that it “a stigmatized racial group locked into an inferior position by law and custom” . The criminal justice system is the gateway into the larger system of marginalization. Americans people have a difficult time talking about the race and class. Many black Americans people they cannot move yet, and they dont sharing anything with the society. She was cheery with Obama’s election and saw Jim Crow as something from the past. She did not see a new racial caste system yet, and when she started her job at the ACLU she find out that there was racial bias in the criminal justice system.Most people think the War on Drugs was created as a response to the crack cocaine crisis of the 1980s and 1990s, Some in the black community thought the War on Drugs was part of a government plan to facilitate the genocide of black people. This was not the same as what they say, but the guerilla armies that the CIA supported

The Jim Crow laws refer to a legislative act that was passed in 1877, which aimed at discriminating the minority groups in America, such as the African Americans, native Indians, immigrant Italians, and Hispanics. The southern states unanimously supported the Jim Crow laws because they were regarded as conservatives who desired to keep the Africans and Red Indians as slaves. The 13th amendment was opposed by the white settlers from the southern states, and for them to maintain their supremacy over the minority races, the whites established a criminal justice system that was meant to ensure that Africans remained in bondage. The criminal justice system was designed in a way that played the same role as the Jim Crow laws. In fact, the institution has been discriminative through the policies enacted, which protect the whites from blacks, who are labeled as criminals. The justice system has led to mass incarceration of blacks in the U.S. when compared to other racial groups. Hence, the U.S. correctional system appears to supports the social inequality that has existed for a long in the American society due to the establishment of a racial caste system and merely redesigning racial discrimination in the contemporary society.