The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration
I listened to the audiobook version of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness and as I listened I walked through the streets of Boston. One night as I listened to Michelle Alexander talk about how African American men are far more likely to be stopped and searched by the police, I came across two Emerson Police Officers forcing a black man to the ground. He knelt down with his hands in the air as they patted his body down. Maybe he had done something do deserve this treatment, or maybe he had just looked like a criminal because of the color of his skin. As I continued to read The New Jim Crow I continued to think of that man. I didn’t see them approach him, so I don’t know how the situation unfolded. but I can’t
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Another major thing that struck me while reading The New Jim Crow was how African Americans are forced into a life of poverty after being released from prison. Michelle Alexander argues that they have a much harder time finding a job or a place to live after being convicted of any crime. “Nearly every state allows private employers to discriminate on the basis of past criminal convictions. In fact, employers in most states can deny jobs to people who were arrested but never convicted of any crime” (Alexander 149). This makes it almost impossible for most people to find a job after leaving prison, and as police departments continue to arrest black men at a much higher rate than white men it is far more likely that black families will end up living below the poverty line. Reading this section of the The New Jim …show more content…
She discusses how those old laws seem very similar to the mass incarceration today. She argues that after slavery white Americans needed a way to control the black population and so Jim Crow was born. After Jim Crow ended white Americans once again needed to way to control the black population, and so the War on Drugs began, and with it came the age of mass incarceration. “Jim Crow eventually replaced slavery, but now it too had died, and it was unclear what might take its place” (Alexander 40). I am inclined to accept her argument as fact after reading The New Jim Crow. It is hard to argue with the facts that she presents. It seems that black people are unfairly targeted, not because they are more likely to be committing crimes, but simply because they are black. Before reading this book, I would have said that the crime rate was caused by the poverty that many black families find themselves in, but that’s not seeing the whole picture. That is seeing one tiny fragment of it. It is not addressing the larger problem. It is not helping to end the mass incarceration of black men. It is not helping to end the New Jim Crow. After reading this book my eyes have been opened to the real problems facing black men in the United
Another major thing that struck me while reading The New Jim Crow was how African Americans are forced into a life of poverty after being released from prison. Michelle Alexander argues that they have a much harder time finding a job or a place to live after being convicted of any crime. “Nearly every state allows private employers to discriminate on the basis of past criminal convictions. In fact, employers in most states can deny jobs to people who were arrested but never convicted of any crime” (Alexander 149). This makes it almost impossible for most people to find a job after leaving prison, and as police departments continue to arrest black men at a much higher rate than white men it is far more likely that black families will end up living below the poverty line. Reading this section of the The New Jim …show more content…
She discusses how those old laws seem very similar to the mass incarceration today. She argues that after slavery white Americans needed a way to control the black population and so Jim Crow was born. After Jim Crow ended white Americans once again needed to way to control the black population, and so the War on Drugs began, and with it came the age of mass incarceration. “Jim Crow eventually replaced slavery, but now it too had died, and it was unclear what might take its place” (Alexander 40). I am inclined to accept her argument as fact after reading The New Jim Crow. It is hard to argue with the facts that she presents. It seems that black people are unfairly targeted, not because they are more likely to be committing crimes, but simply because they are black. Before reading this book, I would have said that the crime rate was caused by the poverty that many black families find themselves in, but that’s not seeing the whole picture. That is seeing one tiny fragment of it. It is not addressing the larger problem. It is not helping to end the mass incarceration of black men. It is not helping to end the New Jim Crow. After reading this book my eyes have been opened to the real problems facing black men in the United