My thoughts on, "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander

I have just completed reading, "The New Jim Crow" and I have many positive and some negative things to say. Before I get into that I want to say how much this book actually taught me about politics and the terrible system of discrimination that is in effect in our country. I had thought that slavery and discrimination were over and all people had equal rights, however, this book was able to bring light to this cruel system of mass incarceration that is locking up colored people and putting them behind bars for life. I also now understand more clear this concept of racism and how no matter how hard people fight this concept of race and racism will be everlasting.  Positives: This book had a lot of strengths that made it a very informative and grasping book. Alexander had a clear point of what she was trying to prove with this book and that made is very understandable. On top of her making a clear point, she also provides excellent examples as evidence to back up all her

Chapters 4-6 I just finished reading "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. She covers more on this concept of mass incarceration and shows how it is truly, The New Jim Crow. These last three chapters really wrapped up her main points and showed how racial discrimination really needs to be stopped in our country.  Michelle Alexander covers everything I had predicted of her to talk about in Chapter 4. She goes in depth on the effects of mass incarceration and what these felons have to face after being released. She starts off the chapter with a reference from 1853 from Fredrick Douglas. She uses this to show how slaves back then also suffered great amounts even after freedom and how nowadays felons who get freed are no different to these slaves. This connection she makes goes to show how slavery and discrimination haven't really ended but just evolved into a different form today. After making this point she goes on to explain how felons suffer after being released.

Chapter 1-3 So far I have read up to chapter 3 of The New Jim Crow, and the book has covered the history of caste and racial segregation to now the War on Drugs and how blacks are being discriminated in the criminal justice system.  Chapter 1 starts off covering slavery in the United States. Michelle Alexander talks about the concept of Race in the US. This concept first started when white settlers founded this country on freedom, however at the same time they were the one enslaving African-Americans. These black people were used as a free source of labor and hence were then placed at the bottom of the caste system. Then plantation owners started transporting large amounts of people from Africa. They were chosen to be perfect for slavery over Europeans due to them being less likely to revolt. Alexander shows how slavery had risen in the South. However, after the civil war slavery was abolished. However, the death of slavery had just paved the path for a new set of segregation ru

The Author Michelle Alexander was born on October 7, 1967, in Stelle, IL. Alexander is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University, where she received a Truman Scholarship. Alexander served several years as director of the Racial Justice Project at the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California. This leading a national campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement. Along with that she also directed a Civil Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School. Today Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar.  She is most well known for her 2010 novel,  The New Jim Crow,  which is the novel I will be reading.  She has dealt with many racial justice and criminal justice reform issues so she has extensive knowledge when in this subject.  My Expectations I have very high expectations for this novel. I feel that I will be able to take away many important lessons and learn a lot about civil rights and racism consid