The Effects Of Racism In The New Jim Crow Laws

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.

Jim Crow was a man who created laws, that affected many peoples lives during the 1960s. These laws made it much harder for blacks mainly in the South, but then it started to move upward in the United States. There were many purposes leading to creating these laws. During this era, blacks were excluded from many things and opportunities. These laws made many changes and changed how the things were after these laws were taken away. The Jim Crow Laws affected, harmed, excluded, and ruined many blacks and in some cases white peoples lives.

“The New Jim Crow” was written by Michelle Alexander based off of her experience working for the ACLU of Oakland in which she saw racial bias in the justice system that constituted people of color second-class citizens (Alexander 3); which is why the comparison had been made to the Jim Crow laws that existed in the nineteenth century consistently throughout Alexander's novel. Alexander notes comparisons in white resentment, colorblind language, segregation in neighborhoods, legal discrimination, etc., while the difference are the lack of activism that is shown in response to

Before there were players such as Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball was strictly white players only. The color line of Major League Baseball excluded black players until the late 40’s. This didn’t stop the colored men of America from playing the beloved American sport. The creation of the Negro Leagues in 1920 by Rube Foster gave colored men a chance to play in their own professional league, similar to the Major Leagues, but for African-American men. The creation of the Negro Leagues was a result of the Jim Crow Laws, state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Enacted after the Reconstruction period in the U.S., these laws continued in force until 1965. These laws created

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.

Alexander asserts “Jim Crow appears to die, but then are reborn in a new form tailored to the needs and constraints of the time.” The announcement of the War on Drugs steamroll mass incarceration of African-Americans in creating more crime and disparities in the African-American communities. When African-Americans are released from prison new Jim Crow laws took it one step further to maintain racialized social control by labeling African-Americans as felon. Alexander states “once you label to filing all formative discrimination in employment discrimination, housing discrimination, the now on the right to vote, denial of educational opportunities to now of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury servers are suddenly legal.” P page 2

Mass incarceration is known as a net of laws, policies, and rules that equates to the American criminal justice system. This series of principles of our legal system works as an entrance to a lifelong position of lower status, with no hope of advancement. Mass incarceration follows those who are released from prison through exclusion and legalized discrimination, hidden within America. The New Jim Crow is a modernized version of the original Jim Crow Laws. It is a modern racial caste system designed to keep American black men and minorities oppressed with laws and regulations by incarceration. The system of mass incarceration is the “new Jim Crow” due to the way the U.S. criminal justice system uses the “War on Drugs” as the main means of allowing discrimination and repression. America currently holds the highest rate of incarceration in the world, and even more African American men imprisoned, although white men are more likely to commit drug crimes but not get arrested. The primary targets of the criminal justice system are men of color. Mass incarceration is a rigid, complex system of racial control that resembles Jim Crow.

Even after the hurdle of being enslaved was passed, there were many more and difficult hurdles ahead. For example, the black codes were an earlier major hurdle. The codes prevented African Americans from owning weapons, votes, and land. While the Black Codes were quickly abolish; a group emerged called the Ku Klux Klan which aimed to bring down African Americans to be seen as less than then human. However, the Jim Crow laws caused separation, and that separation led to African Americans having unequal opportunities. These laws were claimed to be constitutional, because they didn't deprive any person of life, liberty, or property; or trying to include slavery. From the Black codes to Jim Crow laws, African Americans had, and have many hurdles to overcome.

The whole Jim Crow Law rules were based on the separate but equal properties. Any of the laws that enforced racial segregation in the south between the end of reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the civil rights movement in the 1950s. Jim crow laws affected public places such as schools, housing jobs, parks, cemeteries, and public gathering places. Ohio was one of the first to ban interracial marriage. There was forms of segregation before the laws came into place. For instance some people had the mentality that they could work with a slave as long as the slave knew his or her place. Brown vs. Board of Education is an example of a Jim Crow law being put into action. After the supreme court unanimously held that racial segregation of children in public schools violated the Equal Protection Clause.

Starting in the 1890s, segregation laws known as the Jim Crow Laws dominated the United States, specifically in the South. These laws required schools, parks, libraries, forms of public transportation and even drinking fountains to be segregated into “Whites Only” and “Coloreds”. Although the Jim Crow Laws intended to treat blacks “separate but equal”, blacks received poorer conditions in their public facilities, were denied the right to vote and were treated with no respect from the whites (Jim Crow Laws). In Richard Wright’s essay, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch”, Wright describes his first-hand experience with these laws and the negative encounters he has faced just because of the color of his skin.

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.

This “war on drugs,” which all subsequent presidents have embraced, has created a behemoth of courts, jails, and prisons that have done little to decrease the use of drugs while doing much to create confusion and hardship in families of color and urban communities.1,2Since 1972, the number of people incarcerated has increased 5-fold without a comparable decrease in crime or drug use.1,3 In fact, the decreased costs of opiates and stimulants and the increased potency of cannabis might lead one to an opposing conclusion.4 Given the politics of the war on drugs, skyrocketing incarceration rates are deemed a sign of success, not failure. I don’t totally agree with the book (I think linking crime and black struggle is even older than she does, for instance) but I think The New Jim Crow pursues the right line of questioning. “The prison boom is not the main cause of inequality between blacks and whites in America, but it did foreclose upward mobility

Jim Crow sets the guidelines for a violent mindset that will fabricate deadly culture norms. The Jim Crow laws did not directly address that a person of color like Emmett could not go into Bryants' store and supposedly "flirt" with her. It was not the law of division that allowed Carolyn's husband and brother-in-law to beat young Emmett to death, burn in his body and throw him in the river. It was the self-entitlement that white lives mattered more than blacks derived from Jim Crow laws saying the contradiction of separate but equal that allowed the killing of a 14-year-old boy on false accusations without legal implications for the murderers. There were unspoken rules and social standings that would not be tolerated anymore.

Michelle Alexander throughout her book introduces us to the way the “New Jim Crow”works in today's society. This new jim crow can be taken as a racial caste throughout the United States. She defines this undercaste as “A lower caste of individuals who are permanently barred by law and custom from mainstream society (Alexander pg 13) Not only does this have to do because of mass incarceration rates among black men, but it also adds to the effects of what the branded felons must face beyond the prison walls. She mentions this early on in her book that

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.