Just four years after the first juvenile court was established, W.E.B. DuBois, in 1903, wrote that the problem of the 20th century was the color line (DuBois, 2005). More than a century later, in 2012, Michelle Alexander wrote in her book “The New Jim Crow” that she had somewhat reluctantly come to the conclusion that a racial caste system still exists in the United States and is responsible for the disproportionate number of minorities in the criminal justice system (Alexander, 2012).
Somewhat more than halfway through the 19th century, Jefferson Davis made a statement that clearly shows the problem in a stark manner. In his book tracing racist ideas in America, Ibram X. Kendi recalls what Jefferson Davis, who would go on to become the president
Crime, Citizenship, and the Court’s analyzation of Incarceration, Inequality, and Imagining Alternatives have revealed the prevalent racial profiling that exists in the African American community. Bruce Western emphasizes the prominent levels of incarceration in minority neighborhoods elaborating on the negative effects that these rates have on families, communities, and lifestyles. He reiterates that “incarceration deepens inequality because its negative social and economic effects are concentrated in the poorest communities” (Western, 297). When we analyze Fox News media portrayals of Martin, we could begin to understand why African Americans change their methods of transportation, clothing, and routines. These men adapt to the reality of racial profiling in fear that one day, they may contribute to the high incarceration rates within their communities.
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is a book outlining and analysing the social constructs of the United States of America through the context of mechanics of the judicial system. It compares and contrasts the slavery, old Jim Crow law and post Jim Crow law eras in the means to highlight the racial discrimination against the Black and Brown community by the White elite. The author explores the court cases and legislation passed by the government to implement a national system geared to favor the White community and its effects on the imagery that has developed in the American mind set. Michelle Alexander is among many things an African-American woman. She is lawyer who represented in the Civil Rights era.
On August 26, 1935, I witnessed Maycomb County Court turn the United States Court System into a monstrosity. Thomas Robinson, 25, was accused for the alleged rape and molestation of Mayella Violet Ewell, a white woman (citizen of Maycomb, Alabama). As I entered the courtroom, I realized that Maycomb had been inundated with racism and supported the segregation of public facilities, as do most Southern states. This was my first trip to Alabama, but I have never seen so many people at a trial before. I’d say 80% of the courtroom was Caucasian, with the minority making up the convict’s family or friends.
One of the statistics that stands out is that 1 in 3 black men will go to prison in the United States as opposed to 1 in 17 white men. In addition, there was a statistic that states that 97% of black inmates did not take their cases to court because they would be punished more if they did. This is significant because it shows how police and the federal prison system are biased towards the black community, specifically highlighting the point of having a judicial system if it was not used fairly. Over the past 150 years, some historical events that demonstrate racism after the 13th amendment was passed have been the Jim Crow laws, segregation, and most importantly, the “Southern Strategy.” The Southern Strategy was a way for politicians in the 20th century to crack down on crime but create a byproduct that diminished the black community.
Who was Jim Crow? Before reading this book or studying Jim Crow laws one might assume that Jim Crow refers to a specific person in history. Jim Crow, it turns out, was not a specific person but a term used to describe a person of color. The set of laws regarding segregation came to be known as Jim Crow laws. Prior to the civil war when African-Americans were still enslaved, blacks and whites lived in close proximity to one another.
In the opening of the introduction of The New Jim Crow the author clearly outlines the power of one race to another for example how the great-great grandfather of Jarvis’s Cotton was denied to vote for being a slave (Alexander 2010). The great grandfather of Jarvis’s beaten to death by the Klan for attempting to vote (Alexander 2010) and Jarvis himself could not vote because he was labeled as a felon. Most offenders today that get out from prison face discrimination in voting, employment, housing and receiving public assistance linking toward the Jim Crow era. Most incarcerated individuals are still racially segregated which racial bias still exist in our criminal justice system today not only in the Southern states. Some people still believe
one person, it may not be evil to another. Nonetheless, social evil, evil acts, are done everyday and will continue to happen. Also because evil can be considered anything nowadays with an abundance of different belief systems in this country, and all over the world, evil acts are always happening and will continue to happen. Mass incarceration and police brutality are just a few social evils that are being committed in the United States that are really changing us as a society and what ‘The New Jim Crow’ has to do with it. As I stated before, social evils are issues in which in one way or another affects members of a society and is often considered controversial or problematic in terms of moral values.
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, M. (2012). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (Rev. ed.). New York, NY: The New Press. Michelle Alexander in her book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" argues that law enforcement officials routinely racially profile minorities to deny them socially, politically, and economically as was accustomed in the Jim Crow era.
While I was viewing these articles, I really started to get angry inside. I understood all this exists, but reading it over and over again brings me back to remember how serious this situation is. Many of these topics was covered in the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, but these articles are bringing up topics that I never even considered. Such as, in the Silverstein’s article it said “Discrimination has been shown to increase the risk of stress, depression, the common cold, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and mortality. ”(Silverstein)
To ignore mass incarceration as a form of racism because of the strives made in civil rights of American History over the last 60 years, is to assume ignorance that will eventually topple America. This caste system opens the door and justifies other forms of civil abuses. One cannot help the color of skin that they are born with, either should his or her life trajectory be set or punished for it. Bibliography Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.
Michelle Alexander, similarly, points out the same truth that African American men are targeted substantially by the criminal justice system due to the long history leading to racial bias and mass incarceration within her text “The New Jim Crow”. Both Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Michelle Alexander’s text exhibit the brutality and social injustice that the African American community experiences, which ultimately expedites the mass incarceration of African American men, reflecting the current flawed prison system in the U.S. The American prison system is flawed in numerous ways as both King and Alexander points out. A significant flaw that was identified is the injustice of specifically targeting African American men for crimes due to the racial stereotypes formed as a result of racial formation. Racial formation is the accumulation of racial identities and categories that are formed, reconstructed, and abrogated throughout history.
Even before our nation’s founding, people of color have been discriminated. Decades pass and the criminal justice system is still “racist” labeling people of color as criminal, meaning black equal criminals therefore is fine to discriminate people of color just because they’re criminals. In “The New Jim Crow” the system targets black men because they are associated with crime, meaning crime stands in for race. In the other hand, As Heather Mac Donald writes in her book “The War on Cops”, “The criminal-justice system does treat individual suspects and criminals equally, they concede. But the problem is how society defines crime and criminals” (154).
Stevenson closely examines the role of racism in the criminal justice system showing how America’s past still haunts the present. Through his experiences as a lawyer, he recognizes
The Jim Crow laws claimed to be “Separate but equal”, they were anything but. The laws separated the blacks from the whites. They had separate stores, schools, and even drinking fountains. The Jim Crow laws separated the blacks from the whites, made life harder for the blacks, and when they were separated their stores, restaurants, and other things were not equal.
Annotated Bibliography Alexander, M. (2010). The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness. New York: The New Press. Alexander opens up on the history of the criminal justice system, disciplinary crime policy and race in the U.S. detailing the ways in which crime policy and mass incarceration have worked together to continue the reduction and defeat of black Americans.