Michelle Alexander Rhetorical Analysis

Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, examines mass incarceration in the United States, why the criminal justice system works the way it does towards minorities, the detriments associated with mass incarceration as it relates to offenders, and much more. In the introduction of her book, Alexander immediately paints the harsh reality of mass incarceration with the story of Jarvious Cotton who is denied the right to vote among other rights because he, “has been labeled as a felon and is currently on parole” (1). Other information Alexander presents in her introduction are her qualifications as an author of the book, and gives a brief summary of each chapter and how each one is laid out. Her qualifications are she is African-American civil rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and is also an Associate Professor at the University of Stanford Law School. From a critical standpoint, Alexander seems very qualified to write on the topic, being part of the marginalized group and also being an expert in the legal field of which the topic covers, enhances her ethos to where one could consider her an expert in mass incarceration topics, as they relate to African-Americans. Overall, the introduction of her book does a great job starting out giving a stark reality of topic at hand, giving brief statistical references about mass incarceration in the United States, and giving an outline for her book.

The word “disgraced” (Alexander 15) emphasizes the discrimination and struggle that African Americans experience. Through her brief description of the current justice system, Michelle Alexander believed that the Jim Crow and slavery were both caste systems and relates it back to the American system of mass incarceration. This claim is very surprising considering the fact that the United States of America is considered by many to be the land of the “free” and equal rights. She also believed that the system of mass incarceration and

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness was written by Michelle Alexander to expose the truth of racial injustice in the system of mass incarceration through the comparison of the racial control during the Jim Crow Era. She reveals how race plays an important role in the American Justice System. Alexander argues about the racial bias, particularly towards African-Americans, immanent in the war on drugs as a result of their lack of political power and how the Supreme Court tolerates this injustice.

Many believe that civil rights movements have completely eradicated racial injustices and inequality in the United States. Michelle alexander disprove this myth in her book “The New Jim Crow.” Alexander claims racial caste did not die with slavery. She implies that the racial caste system in America has been reformed multiple times to meet “the needs and demands of current political climates” (alexander 52). She believes that mass incarceration which she refers to as “The New Jim Crow” is the current caste system in the United States. By elaborating on the history of racial caste in America and by including quotes from politicians such as Nixon and Lyndon Johnson, Alexander effectively persuades her reader that the United States has not achieved

The third critical book review for this class takes a look at “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander published in 2012 by the New York Press. This book analyzes the problem with the incarceration system in the United States today that unfairly affects the African American community. This incarceration system is continuing to separate families, strip men of their freedom, and effectually make them into second class citizens upon release from prison as “free” men. She even describes that those who are convicted of these crimes are “relegated to a racially segregated and subordinated existence” (Pg. 4). Michelle Alexander is not only a published author but is also an active Civil Rights activist all while currently employed as an associate professor of law at Ohio State University. It is a very interesting read that coincides with where our class discussions have recently been. It argues that we as a country have not ended racial discrimination but just transformed it into a new type of caste system. It is an eye opening book that created an uncomfortable feeling while reading due to my level of ignorance on this topic prior to taking this class. I believe that this book will serve as an important narrative into fixing the race problems in this country because it brings to light what needs to be fixed. If any progress is made it will be because of books like this that expose the problems but starting to fix them will be the next step.

To offer evidence to the reader of the racial motivations behind mass incarceration, Alexander follows the history of the racial caste system. The history begins with slavery, which was the original form of African American oppression. With slavery, according to Alexander, barriers were created between lower class whites and blacks, which led to decades of racism later (Alexander, 2010). After the death of slavery, the racism lived on and Jim Crow laws were created after Reconstruction to

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarceration in the United States. Michelle Alexander (2010) argues that despite the old Jim Crow is death, does not necessarily means the end of racial caste (p.21). In her book “The New Jim Crow”, Alexander describes a set of practices and social discourses that serve to maintain African American people controlled by institutions. In this book her analyses is centered in examining the mass incarceration phenomenon in recent years. Comparing Jim Crow with mass incarceration she points out that mass incarceration is

Racism is a thing of the past, or is it? Michelle Alexander’s, “The New Jim Crow,” main focus is on mass incarceration and how it occurs in an era of color blindness. Alexander also focuses on the social oppressions that African Americans have suffered throughout the years, until now. In this essay, I will discuss how the system of control was constructed, Alexander’s compelling historical analysis, and if the current system would be easier to dismantle. I would like to start by delving into how the system of control was constructed.

Michelle Alexander starts by giving some insight of the history in our country as it relates to race and racism. She talked about slavery, reconstruction, Jim Crow, support for concern of ordinary people, the end of Jim Crow Board vs Brown and the Civil Rights Movement. Alexander’s noted that Jim Crow laws of the past is represented today by mass incarceration they are not 100% but very similar. Jim Crow was all about segregation of blacks from whites in schools, public places, neighborhoods and even drinking fountains. The mass incarceration is based on charging people of color with drug charges to keep control of them and ensure their economic, political and social status remain less than other groups. This mass incarceration locked

Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness goes into great detail on race related issues that were specific to black males, the mass incarceration, and how that lead to the development of institutionalized racism in the United States. She compares the Jim Crow with recent phenomenon of mass incarceration and points out that the mass incarceration is a network of laws, policies, customs and institutions that have been working together to warrant the subordinating status of black males. In this paper I will go into a brief examination of the range of issues that she mentions in her book that are surrounding the mass incarceration of black male populations.

Michelle Alexander argues that the fact that the majority of inmates in jails are young African Americans is the result of a current prison system that may be purposely fixed to target individuals that live in poor communities of color. She also argues that the war on drugs has been regulated among poor communities, which has only lead to the incarceration of millions of people of color even for minor crime offenses, which automatically labels them in society. Once these people of color are incarcerated, they are no longer able to vote or get hired and are sometimes discriminated by society just as their ancestors were during the Jim Crow era.

What's more, by the 1980s, the U.S. started criminalizing as once huge African American individuals who swung to drugs, in particular split, a considerable lot of them attacked by the acknowledgment that the look and battle for genuine flexibility was purposeless. Michelle Alexander, a law scholar and theologian, conveyed a large number of these certainties to the fore in her much-proclaimed book The New Jim Crow. She is included unmistakably in thirteenth, examining how mass detainment has and hasn't changed since her book was first distributed six years prior. Strikingly, what's transformed, she says, is the way that we discuss those who've been detained. DuVernay's film ensures that her audience comprehends that America's implicating eyes haven't quite recently been settled on poor African Americans who got snared on drugs.

The New Jim Crow is a book that discusses how legal practices and the American justice system are harming the African American community as a whole, and it argues that racism, though hidden, is still alive and well in our society because of these practices. In the book, Michelle Alexander, author and legal scholar, argues that legal policies against offenders have kept and continue to keep black men from becoming first class citizens, and she writes that by labeling them as “criminals,” the justice system and society in general is able to act with prejudice against them and subordinate black Americans who were previously incarcerated, on probation, or on parole, by limiting their access to services as a result of their ‘criminal status’ and therefore, further degrading their quality of life. The New Jim Crow urges readers to acknowledge the injustice and racial disparity of our criminal justice system so that this new, more covert form of racism in society can be stopped.

The power that white men possess, particularly in the South, has become so great that black people’s liberty is not guaranteed despite Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Tara Hunter offers the mass incarceration of black men and women as an example of the different methods the South had utilized in order to enslave black people. In the 1860s, public demands to end police brutality towards African-Americans arose as police officers arrested and imprisoned black folks on the basis of getting higher salaries and promotions. According to Hunter, 60% of individuals arrested in Atlanta in the 1880s were black men, despite black men only constituting 44% of the population. 80% of black women were also apprehended, 90% of them were actually sent to jail, but yet again black women only made up half of the female population. This mass incarceration of black people benefitted the state as they were sent to work in chain gangs to perform physical labour as form of “punishment”, which in reality was an alternative to slavery. Therefore, although in legal terms slavery was abolished, to believe that this was the reality being practiced is nonsensical.

In this paper I will discuss the social problem that is affecting the Black Community currently. Since the establishment of this country our ancestors, regardless of what background or ethnicity, have fought and lost their lives to live in this country that we call the Land of The Free. I believe that this motto should be stood by, but it is not. It is very ironic due to the fact that it really is not the land of the free if put into perspective. When we think about all the problems in the world, it is more like the land of the prisoners. Our country has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It is stated, “…per a population of 100,000 people, 716 are incarcerated”(Wagner, web). When comparing that to the following country, United Kingdom, their ratio is 147 people are incarcerated per every 100,000. These statistics speak endless amounts of words about our country and the problem is occurring right in front of our eyes. Within these high incarceration rates throughout the U.S. we can also see how Blacks are being sentenced longer and harsher for the same crime committed as whites. This is due to the unjust actions in our criminal justice system being corrupted by the judges who have different interpretations that are sentencing citizens based on their own reasoning and opinions. Without knowing it, this is affecting blacks in their communities and the country itself. The rest of my paper will discuss this social problem further.