New Jim Crow Drugs

Words: 2343
Pages: 10
Open Document
America is a nation who basis principles includes freedom, liberty, and equality to its citizens. However through the history of American and this present time, there are issues of racism, discrimination, inequality, and unjustness that are continually inflicted on American citizens, particular people who are of colored. In the novel “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, author Michelle Alexander argues that the use system use to control and depressed people of color in the Jim Crow era has been replaced by the American’s prison legal system. Alexander claims that the American government used the political tactics of the War on Drugs as grounds to go after people of color and poor communities. Because of the …show more content…
Most people convict of drugs are non violent. The War on Drugs was really a political plot set up by the Regan’s administration to win over white voters. When Republican President Ronald Regan announced the War on Drugs in the early eighties, there was no public concern on the issue. What is more the usage and selling of dangerous drugs was low. Still, the Regan’s administration used his staff to falsely bring public attention of dangerous drugs inside the United States. The drug in focused was crack cocaine. Even though the majority of people using crack cocaine were white, the news media aired images of black males in the ghettos being arrested for selling and using the drug. The media also talked about black female’s prostitutes, black mothers and their new born babies addicted to crack. Crack cocaine was seen as the poor black people’s drug. Suddenly, black males in poor neighborhoods started to be viewed as the ideal drug dealer and the arrested rate of black male rose (Alexander, …show more content…
Any business or organization can legally use a person’s felony record as excuses to discriminate against that person. This means that person can be denied employment, work licensee, renting an apartment and government benefits and housing. Every time a person has to tell a decision maker or check on an application that they have been convicted of a felon, they are higher at risk of being treated differently. What is more, convicts are giving strict rules that they must complete after prison and if they want to avoid prison such as find a job, meeting their probation officer, staying off of drugs, paying child support, and court cost. Nonetheless, because of legal discrimination many people cannot complete the requirements and some will develop depression, commit or turn back to crime and land right back in prison (Alexander,
Show More

Related Documents: New Jim Crow Drugs

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration

changed, and shaped into unrecognizable ways that fit into the fabric of the American society to render it nearly invisible to the majority of Americans. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness shatters this dominantly held belief. The New Jim Crow makes a reader extremely question the high rates of incarceration in the United States is an attempt to maintain blacks as an underclass. Michelle Alexander asserts that “[w]e have not ended racial…

Words 1635 - Pages 7

The New Jim Crow Incarceration Essay

Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Colorblindness In the age of Mass Incarceration, she explains that there are three distinct phases of incarceration that characterize this new era of Jim Crow. Alexander names these phases this way: the roundup, the period of formal control, and lastly, the period of invisible incarceration. According to Alexander, although the Jim Crow era of enforced racial segregation ended years ago, in her view, these three forms of incarceration amount to a new form of racial segregation…

Words 454 - Pages 2

The New Jim Crow Summary

The New Jim Crow" highlights the racial measurements of the War on Drugs. It contends that government drug approach unjustifiably targets groups of color, keeping a huge number of youthful, black men in a cycle of neediness and in jail. The book starts by discrediting claims that prejudice is dead. The individuals who accept that full uniformity been accomplished would do well to notice numerous African Americans' existence today. A remarkable measure of blacks are still banned from voting in light…

Words 872 - Pages 4

Mass Incarceration

professor of law at the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. In Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, The New Press, 2010, she illustrates the devastating effects that mass incarceration in America has on blacks, especially black men. Alexander argues that the current mass incarceration of blacks is very similar to the past slavery system of blacks, and is very similar to the new Jim Crow era that followed it. Alexander further argues that “slavery has not ended for blacks, it has just…

Words 917 - Pages 4

Jim Crow Essay

The New Caste System: Mass Incarceration of African Americans In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander expresses her main argument as being that the foundation of Jim Crow has not ended, but has been justified through the context of the United States’ criminal justice system. Alexander claims that African Americans who are labeled as criminals allow for the old ways of discrimination to legally continue. The New Jim Crow system that has been redesigned in America leaves a…

Words 684 - Pages 3

Mass Incarceration: The New Jim Crow

era of mass incarceration is the new Jim Crow. She explained how mass incarceration in the United States, is the result of millions of African Americans in prison. In the beginning of the chapter, she explained the different forms of caste-based system such as slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration. This provided examples of how each caste system continue to segregate people. Alexander provided information of racial prejudices, the massive budget increased for drug law enforcement and the media convincing…

Words 146 - Pages 1

4 and 5 jim crow Essay

Lori Davila Mr. Waller AP Language and Composition 08 May 2014 Jim Crow, Ch. 4-5 Discussion Questions: 1. People that are convicted of committing a felony have several rights taken away. Naturally, these rights mostly deal with political liberties. For instance, the convicted individuals are not given the ability to vote or the right to a jury. These consequences stem from the U.S. Constitution; it states that all individuals have the right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. Because…

Words 1042 - Pages 5

Michelle Alexander's The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration

In the book “The New Jim Crow: mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander’s puts a spotlight directly on what perhaps is one of our greatest national shame’s: the phenomenal rates of incarceration for the people of color in the United States. This is a fact that our nation has been hesitant to face. She powerfully makes the argument that the incarceration industry in the 21st century has become to the resemblance of what Jim Crow segregation was to the 20th century- a…

Words 533 - Pages 3

Jim Crow Laws: Purpose Of The Civil Rights Movement

Jim Crow laws Around 1865, jim crow laws were established throughout the southern states. Jim crow laws were the laws that segregated the whites from the colored people. Around the time the jim crow laws were put into action, the colored people were considered as “slaves”. Slaves were humans with a darker skin pigment than whites. They were put to work by their “owners”, on either farms or plantations. The lives for the colored were really tough. For example, any public…

Words 909 - Pages 4

Michelle Alexander The New Jim Crow Analysis

Rawle Searles SSP101 Final Paper In “The New Jim Crow” Professor Michelle Alexander argues that the criminal justice system in America has evolved into new a caste system, Professor James Forman who also argues that the criminal justice system faces more complex problems that surpasses race. Even though they both have strong cases and evidence to support both their claims very well, but I agree with Prof. Alexander more for stronger evidence. Mr. Professor Forman shares…

Words 975 - Pages 4