This book chapter was written by Michelle Alexander, a successful civil rights litigator and advocate for racial justice. In this chapter Alexander talks about the War on Drugs, racial discrimination, the stigmatization of African American men, housing discrimination, poverty, the rights that felons lose after incarceration, the difficulties of reintegration to society, recidivism, and Supreme Court cases. During the war on drugs, law enforcement was encouraged to go after crack cocaine instead of powder cocaine. At that time, it was well known that crack cocaine was commonly used…
In the article, “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander vigorously argues the means in which the American prison system disenfranchises poor people of color by creating a dynamic author-reader relationship through the use of pathos, logos, and ethos, to effectively persuade and appeal her claims to the reader. Utilizing the pathos approach, Alexander evokes emotion from the readers through her use of emotive and visual diction. Moreover, Alexander uses the ethos approach by including the sources and citations or the information she presents her audience. Alongside these citations, the author refers to her own expertise as a lawyer through her personal narratives and simultaneously builds her credibility as a writer. Furthermore, she strategically…
In C. Vann Woodward’s book, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Woodward talks about the “Twilight Zone” which was the period of myths. Woodward was the first Historian to write about race relations in the time period between 1860 and 1965. Woodward’s purpose of writing this book was to show that segregation even by law has always been prevalent, and to “make the attempt to relate to the origins and development of Jim Crowism to the bewildering rapid changes that have occurred in race relations” (C.V.W. 2nd Preface pg. 17). Woodward’s thesis throughout his book was that racial segregation, which was later known as Jim Crow in the South, did not begin immediately after the Civil War in 1865; moreover that race relations changed in the 1890s and…
In Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow she argues the point of the new caste system in the United Sates has resulted in many people becoming incarcerated and then confined to a second-class status. In Chapter 2, Alexander’s focuses on the War on Drugs and how many are incarcerated, especially people of color. Furthermore, once they are released they are not free instead, they are discriminated against in the legal sense for the rest of their lives. Brought up again the Chapter 4, where it mentions how upon release the caste system operates in a certain way where ex-offenders are unable to reintegrate into society and the current economy.…
Introduction Michelle Alexander is a law professor at Ohio State University, civil rights advocate, and author of one of the best-selling book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. She focuses on the mass incarceration of black males and expresses that policies like the War on Drugs have enabled this tragic occurrence. Several undertakings done in our society have prevented black males from prospering and thriving off the resources we have that are relatively available to those who are Caucasian. We rather watch our black men rot in prison then allow them the chance to go to college and thrive off an alternative survival method. Discussion Alexander described that countless blue-collar industrial jobs were taken…
Introduction. Is Mass Incarceration anywhere close to being the Old Jim Crow? Michelle Alexander in her book The New Jim Crow argues that US criminal justice system targets African American through the War On Drugs and relates it to the Old Jim Crow. However, in response to her analogy, James Forman, Jr. believes this comparison diminishes the real harm the Old Jim Crow has left in history. In addition, Forman, Jr. argues The New Jim Crow analogy is ignoring violence, obscuring class and diminishing history of The Old Jim Crow and uses convincing evidence to support his point of view.…
In “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” written by Michelle Alexander, she talks about the issue of mass incarceration throughout the United States. She points out the legal discrimination felons are subject to, hence a second class citizen. Alexander sees the problem of the majority of the prison population are African American males. She states that the War On Drugs helped spike this mass incarceration, and had the intent to discriminate against African American males. Hence the name of “The New Jim Crow”, she found this to be the modern day Jim Crow laws which the criminal justice system is responsible for.…
The New Jim Crow brings a new constructive agenda to understand the sources of mass incarceration among black men in America. The book goes down a timeline that explains the birth and the end of slavery that ended in the civil war, then eventually led to jim crow laws which kept blacks in a lower caste system, which inhibited the rights and privileges that non- blacks had access to. Once the jim crow era ended, the storm wasn’t over and a new caste system erupted. A large dramatic of black male incarceration rates increase because the war on drug’s started. The book explains additional legal negative impacts that push forward to keep a constant state on the incarceration rates of black men such as police discretion, racism/colorism, legalized…
At the end of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander provides many example solutions for the systematic oppression that was presented throughout the book. Some of the practical solutions include community policing, increase funding for public defense, drug treatment for all Americans, and revoke all financial incentives for arresting drug offenders. While other solutions that were offered by Michelle Alexander were less practical, these include: legalize drugs, release prisoners, Affirmative Action, and end mandatory sentences for drugs. Some of Michelle Alexander’s solutions are more plausible then others.…
Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling. Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer. New York: The New Press, 2013. 111pp.…
In addition, this chapter discusses the experience of whites in this new caste system; although not the main objective is the war on drugs, they have against it - a race for state how it hurts all skinned people a powerful example. Finally, in response to skeptics who claim this chapter, because many policies "get tough on crime" is supported by the mass incarceration of African Americans should not be construed as a racial caste system. Many of these claims, I noticed that there is no more convincing arguments today than a hundred years ago by the blacks and whites who claimed apartheid merely reflects the "real" rather than racial hostility hair, that African Americans would be the best Do not challenge Jim Crow system, but should focus on improving its own. Throughout our history, there have been who, for various reasons, have been complicit or defend and control systems prevalent African…
In a book titled “The New Jim Crow” by author Michelle Alexander, opened my eyes to the evolved new system of oppression. This concept was introduced as the Mass incarceration of America in a colorblind society. through thoughtful consideration; laws and legislation keep this new Jim Crow planted in our society. These individuals affected are black men and throughout history have never had the opportunity of an unoppressed American society. Overall this issue didn’t begin overnight it took time and a president to declare a literal War on Drugs that began a systematic roundup of these black men.…
The New Jim Crow’s racial narrative is certainly compelling, and obviously important, so it makes sense that readers would give it additional weight. But drug offenders constitute only a quarter of our nation’s prisoners, while violent offenders make up a much larger share: one-half (Forman). Though the New Jim Crow is persuasive in its attention to the racist nature of drug prohibition, as Forman notes, “even if every single one of these drug offenders were released tomorrow, the United States would still have the world’s largest prison system” (Forman). He observes that her framework over-emphasizes the class, even among African-Americans, and notes that Alexander does not discuss the mass incarceration of other races. In fact, Alexander mentions other races, especially white prisoners, only in passing; she says that mass incarceration’s true targets are blacks, and that incarcerated whites are “collateral damage” (Alexander).…
Although segregation ended many years ago ,it’s characteristics are prevalent today by means of mass incarceration happening in our country to this day. ”The New Jim Crow:Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” written by Michelle Alexander is able to go in depth and show that even though the Jim crow laws have ended,America uses the federal justice system to discriminate against criminals in a ‘’legal” way. MIchelle Alexander is a civil rights lawyer who was also one of the many people who were blinded and not able to see what was actually going on in our justice system. Once a person who has been incarcerated has been released, they are denied the basic rights an american should have. Michelle states that they are excluded from juries…
Introduction The school-to prison pipeline is an epidemic slowly crippling minority youth all over the country. This unspoken system teaches these children that the only path for them is jail. Jail has become the narrative of the black life in America: Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.…