Slavery By Another Name Analysis

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According to James Baldwin, African Americans have the advantage of never believing the myths to which white Americans adhere. African Americans have a more realistic view of the history of our Nation. They haven’t been subjects to unconscious and conscious bias that brainwashed their understanding of Americas history, like whites. Throughout this paper, I will explain what Baldwin means, and use examples from Slavery by Another Name by Douglas Blackmon and The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. Baldwin’s main point is that often American history, tends to be white American history. There is little to no mention of African American contribution in the collection of myths that white Americans cling to, and the atrocities committed by whites against non-whites are often overlooked or neglected completely. African Americans never believed these great American myths, because they know of the untold truths in Americas history, such as slavery, convict leasing, Jim Crow segregation, and the “criminalblackman.” Baldwin argues that whites may be so brainwashed that they are either blind to or chose to ignore these truths of America. It’s much easier for whites to believe “their ancestors were all freedom-loving …show more content…
This created the “criminalblackman” which would inevitably be the primary target of law enforcement. Alexander argues that implicit and explicit bias contributed to racial disparities in law enforcement, much of the racial bias would occur unconsciously and automatically. “When the time came for the Supreme Court to devise legal rules that would govern the War on Drugs, the court adopted rules that would maximize-not minimize- the amount of racial discrimination that would likely occur” (Alexander 108). The Supreme Court Justices probably had some unconscious bias that affected their

Slavery Another Name Analysis

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