Michelle Alexander The New Jim Crow Analysis

According to the article “Is Racial Or Religious Profiling Ever Justified?”it states “ When officials use profiling, they are indirectly blaming entire communities because a few among them have committed horrible crimes”(Abbas 1). The quotation is illustrating how stereotypes is part of racial profiling because if few people were to do crimes that were illegal, many would think all people are the same. Police departments would think that all people are alike based on the increasing of violence and would blame communities. In addition, In the article “stanford researchers develop new statistical test that shows racial profiling in police traffic stops” it states, “Specifically, the study found that police decided to search black drivers based on a 7 percent certainty that they might be hiding something illegal. If an African American driver looks nervous, for example, police might interpret the nervousness as a sign of possible guilt and insist on a search” ( Andrews 1).

Synopsis In the introduction, Michelle Alexander (2010) introduces herself and expresses her passion about the topic of how the criminal justice system accomplishes racial hierarchy here in the United States. In chapter 1 of The New Jim Crow, Alexander (2010) suggests that the federal government can no longer be trusted to make any effort to enforce black civil rights legislation, especially when the Drug War is aimed at racial and ethnic minorities. In response to revolts formed between black slaves and white indentured servants, rich whites extended special privileges to their indentured servants that drove a wedge between them and the slaves that successfully stopped the revolts. The rich whites found success in giving some human rights to the indentured servants to stop them plotting with the slaves. Chapter 2 follows the corrupt justice system.

Finch mainly talks about if the roles were switched as a ‘black man in a white man 's world’ white men are mainly chosen because of their complexion and believed white men hold more power. Even though Tom Robinson was innocent he still was wrongly accused, then apon going to prison Tom Robinson was later shot 17 times. One would think if he was breaking rules 1 bullet would take care of things, but 17 shots is clearly a act on hate and racism. Another quote that helps determine how Lee used Robinson to expose the truth about the justice system is, "Tom Robinson 's a colored man, Jem. No jury in this part of the world 's going to say 'We think you 're guilty, but not very ' on a charge like that.

In order to score more lucrative deals and attract viewers, news outlets and other forms of media exaggerate and falsify reports of racial profiling, causing the public to get invalid information on the topic. The mainstream media has falsified reports regarding racial profiling for years, causing the public to believe that african-americans and other racial minorities are the main proprietors in drug trafficking and violent crimes. Although the media has instilled the image that racial minorities are the majority of people involved in these types of crimes, these claims are simply not factual and lead to a false perception. News outlets in major cities have been creating inaccurate reports related to crimes and racial minorities in order

Many factors have played into why minorities are so overrepresented within the criminal justice and corrections system, however, I will focus on two main reasons into why this disparity has existed. The first being, the manipulation of laws by elites targeting minority communities. For example, during the 70s and 80s, drugs in America became very popular and in particular crack-cocaine became a leading drug among consumers. For Caucasians, the drug of choice was cocaine which they would snort through the nose, for African-Americans it was crack which was cocaine, however, it was cooked into a rock while cocaine is a powder substance. During this time period both drugs were popular among both races, though, there was a bigger crackdown on crack and the minority community.

It is said that every person is innocent until proven guilty, and not the other way around. It is also said that when officials use profiling, it puts off the wrong message that they are blaming entire communities only because few have committed a crime, like Muslims with terror attacks. These actions go against the constitutional rights given to every American. Racial Profiling“... is inconsistent with America 's core constitutional principles of equality and fairness.” (Nomani and Abbas). Racial profiling is “inconsistent” with

Hughey supports this assertion when he states, “Black Americans who are fatally shot by police are, in fact, less likely to be posing an imminent lethal threat to the officers at the moment they are killed than white Americans fatally shot by police” (Hughey 859). Because black males have more confrontations with law enforcement officials, the stereotype that blacks are naturally more predisposed to violence and crime becomes substantiated, which creates a never ending circle of prejudice and fear for police officers against black

However it is highly unlikely that black men suddenly became six times more dangerous. What really changed was the laws and sentencing. Sweeping laws were written that specifically targeted poor black communities. For instance the sentence for possession of crack were 100% harsher than the sentence for cocaine But it wasn`t just harsher sentencing: communities of colour are also more policed more harshly. Policies like; Stop and Frisk, and Show me your papers target the disenfranchised people of colour under the law.

Simpson was guilty (Gregory 1). Americans were completely spilt based on race and it is because the meaning of the trial varied between the races. To white Americans this was a double homicide were two murders must be brought to justice to black Americans this was this conspiracy for the character assassination of O.J. Simpson and way to bring down someone who was symbol of black success in America. When the jurors were a majority black they ruled not guilty and when the jurors were a majority black they convicted Simpson(Enomoto).

These policies do not directly involve race. An example of this is more African Americans are sentenced to jail than Whites. This type of discrimination results from past practices that are put into law. In pure justice, all people would be sentenced based on the crimes committed, no matter the race even if there were extenuating circumstances, like self-defense. The person would still be sentenced for what they did.

Prohibition increased the amount of crime taking place in american cities, murder, burglary and assault rates increased with the creation of the black market for illegal then substances. Creation of prohibition “helped” in creation of more potent alcohol, young people were exposed to harder liquors that were harmful to their health, due to the fact there was none legal labeling on the alcohol bottles. The current war on drugs had even more drastic results, government started to put more people in jail for not violent crimes, jails started to be filled with inmates that have used the drugs. The drug use policy that is enforced now and the method it uses consist of three parts; first is prevention intervention, second is treatment, and the third one enforcement interventions. The war on drugs in United States limited the tax revenue for the country, and it makes our country looks bad when to compare with other nations; US has the highest incarceration rates on this planet, even though its the country to promote

Racial profiling, poverty and high crime rates are the major contributors to high incarceration rates for African Americans compared to their percent of the general population. Besides social and economic isolation, African Americans have been marked as inherently criminal with the war on drugs and crime targeting them even when the statics shows they are less likely to be in possession of cocaine for example (Walker, Spohn, DeLone, 2012). The high number of African Americans on death row is the result of institutional racism. Majority of the judges in the United States are white and more often than not are either implicitly or explicitly biased in their rulings (Walker, Spohn, DeLone, 2012). Institutionalized racism refers to an expression

The sentencing disparity for drug use by race is disproportionate for African Americans because of The War on Drugs. Matthew Lassiter (2015) explains, “In 1951, Harry Anslinger, the commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, collaborated with senate of criminal investigations to target black ‘dope peddlers’ who were luring pretty white blondes into drug addiction”(2015:128). According to Lassiter (2015), Anslinger believed that peddlers, who destroyed teenagers’ lives, required the most sever punishment (2015:129). Using this rhetoric, presidents like Nixon and Reagan would shape the way drug laws are enforced. For example, Richard Nixon made it his goal to focus on treatment, rather than criminal punishment (Yuill 2009).

Michele Alexander has stated that the marginalization, stigmatization, and the discrimination of people of color who constitutes to the new racial caste is not due to them being black, but rather it is the impact of falling into a “non-racialized “ criminal justice system at the epicenter of what is known is mass incarceration. The mass incarceration of the minorities and more so those involved in non-violent drug offenses and the disproportionate application of capital punishments for those killing whites and other disparities in sentencing all point to a legal system that still treat the minorities more harshly when compared to the whites. At one time, Stevenson went to prison, and he was forced to go back to his car to show that he was indeed an attorney. The correction department officers wanted to strip search him and wanted him to sign a book that he was visiting the prison. Contrastingly, attorneys are not supposed to sign the book.

Stereotypes also play a huge role in the law enforcement. Due to stereotypes that black or latino people are more prone to commit crimes, racial profiling is common among police officers. Numerous cases of police brutality and statistics revealing a biased justice system raises concerns about the reliability of the nation 's authorities. Zillah Eisenstein connects racism to physical bodies in Beyond Borders by explaining that "racism uses the physicality of bodies to punish, to expunge, and isolate certain bodies and construct them as outsiders" (Eisenstein). Many officers tend to convict minorities more often than whites according to this same logic.