Second-Half Recap of "The New Jim Crow"
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. They are faced with numerous roadblocks, which in the end trying to make their way around these just puts them back in jail. Problems such as no access to public housing can lead these felons to commit crimes. These prisoners also must find jobs to meet their parole conditions, along with to survive on their own. However, after an applicant has admitted to being a felon they are not even able to get an interview. Then when they don't meet their parole conditions they get put back into prisons. Alexander shows how this system of mass incarceration puts these colored men into prisons for practically the rest of their lives. Alexander also points out how even if felons are able to live life after prison without getting sent back, they still don't receive the same rights. They get cut the right to vote, something that other countries do not do. After Alexander goes on to explain a concept which people know as 'gangsta rap'. People feel that many colored get put into prisons due to acting in this culture of being a criminal. However, Alexander explains how colored people actually act like this after being released from prison because all other rights and options of life are shut down for them. Alexander makes very good points in this chapter that really help me understand the struggle for these colored men and women after prison.
Chapter 5 starts off by mentioning President Barack Obama's speech in 2008 on Father's Day about how black me should be better fathers. Alexander then goes on to disprove how the stereotype put out by the mass media that black men abandon their family is actually false. The reason black fathers are gone is due to mass incarceration. It is not that they have abandoned their family it is that they have been sent to prison. In the rest of chapter 5, Alexander talks about mass incarceration and how similar it is to the Jim Crow laws from back in the day. Some points she made were that both systems were created to make angry working-class white people focus more on African-Americans than on the economy of the country. She also mentions that both systems operate on a complex system of legalized discrimination against blacks that creates, "a parallel social universe." As she mentions a couple more similarities she also then goes on to mention the differences between the systems. Alexander shows how mass incarceration has actually turned many blacks against each other due to the lack of explicit racism, however in The Jim Crow because it was clear the all blacks were being discriminated against the black community actually joined together to fight it. The similarities show that mass incarceration is practically the same system of discriminating against black people just as the Jim Crow was. The differences, however, go to show us that this system of mass incarceration is actually worse than the Jim Crow system from the 1950's. This is why this new system of discriminating is known as, "The New Jim Crow."
In Chapter 6 Michelle Alexander talks about how civil rights advocates are ignoring the issue of mass incarceration and its victims. She claims that civil rights advocate only care about the public outlook on a certain victim and this is why they more often choose a more sympathetic and respectable figure such as Rosa Parks. Choosing someone like Rosa Parks would attract more supporters to their movements. Alexander then jumps to the war on drugs and how it must be stopped. The end of this war would also bring to the end of racial profiling, and end large mandatory prison sentences. Alexander then mentions how a system of crime control, including stopping drug dealing is needed in society, however the one in affect is doing a terrible job. As I had predicted Alexander covers Barack Obama's presidency saying how it had only made the war on drugs worse due to Vice President Joe Biden. Michelle Alexander closes her book by saying how racial justice advocates, along with everyone else can fight for civil and equal human rights and ensure that "Americas current caste system is its last."
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. They are faced with numerous roadblocks, which in the end trying to make their way around these just puts them back in jail. Problems such as no access to public housing can lead these felons to commit crimes. These prisoners also must find jobs to meet their parole conditions, along with to survive on their own. However, after an applicant has admitted to being a felon they are not even able to get an interview. Then when they don't meet their parole conditions they get put back into prisons. Alexander shows how this system of mass incarceration puts these colored men into prisons for practically the rest of their lives. Alexander also points out how even if felons are able to live life after prison without getting sent back, they still don't receive the same rights. They get cut the right to vote, something that other countries do not do. After Alexander goes on to explain a concept which people know as 'gangsta rap'. People feel that many colored get put into prisons due to acting in this culture of being a criminal. However, Alexander explains how colored people actually act like this after being released from prison because all other rights and options of life are shut down for them. Alexander makes very good points in this chapter that really help me understand the struggle for these colored men and women after prison.
Chapter 5 starts off by mentioning President Barack Obama's speech in 2008 on Father's Day about how black me should be better fathers. Alexander then goes on to disprove how the stereotype put out by the mass media that black men abandon their family is actually false. The reason black fathers are gone is due to mass incarceration. It is not that they have abandoned their family it is that they have been sent to prison. In the rest of chapter 5, Alexander talks about mass incarceration and how similar it is to the Jim Crow laws from back in the day. Some points she made were that both systems were created to make angry working-class white people focus more on African-Americans than on the economy of the country. She also mentions that both systems operate on a complex system of legalized discrimination against blacks that creates, "a parallel social universe." As she mentions a couple more similarities she also then goes on to mention the differences between the systems. Alexander shows how mass incarceration has actually turned many blacks against each other due to the lack of explicit racism, however in The Jim Crow because it was clear the all blacks were being discriminated against the black community actually joined together to fight it. The similarities show that mass incarceration is practically the same system of discriminating against black people just as the Jim Crow was. The differences, however, go to show us that this system of mass incarceration is actually worse than the Jim Crow system from the 1950's. This is why this new system of discriminating is known as, "The New Jim Crow."
In Chapter 6 Michelle Alexander talks about how civil rights advocates are ignoring the issue of mass incarceration and its victims. She claims that civil rights advocate only care about the public outlook on a certain victim and this is why they more often choose a more sympathetic and respectable figure such as Rosa Parks. Choosing someone like Rosa Parks would attract more supporters to their movements. Alexander then jumps to the war on drugs and how it must be stopped. The end of this war would also bring to the end of racial profiling, and end large mandatory prison sentences. Alexander then mentions how a system of crime control, including stopping drug dealing is needed in society, however the one in affect is doing a terrible job. As I had predicted Alexander covers Barack Obama's presidency saying how it had only made the war on drugs worse due to Vice President Joe Biden. Michelle Alexander closes her book by saying how racial justice advocates, along with everyone else can fight for civil and equal human rights and ensure that "Americas current caste system is its last."
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