Arguments Against Traffic Laws Summary

Reading this book gives the feeling of yes this is very true! Alexander brings to life all of the things that I have thought and heard from other people; but to read it in text is so gratifying. A literature like this one is so important to me because the criminal justice system is very much a part of my life. As I read the ways the police are targeting people, it hits home. "A classic pretext stop is a traffic stop motivated not by any desire to enforce traffic laws, but instead motivated by a desire to hunt for drugs in the absence of any evidence of illegal drug activity" (67) Alexander talks about the traffic stops and I think about the situations with my father, my uncle and my stepfather; minor traffic violations were used as a means to stop them. The police are targeting vehicles with tinted windows, maybe load music, or just simply being in a black neighborhood. Alexander makes a good point in saying arresting a small scale drug dealer doesn’t make the streets safer. Making the streets safer isn't the true motive of the government. Arresting our men only leaves children without a father and women without a husband. I have experienced the heartache that comes along with and the
For hundreds of years black people have been suppressed by American society. A society based off of white mainstream, that's why we have white privileged and white supremacy. From slavery, to jim crow, to mass incarceration. America has not become a post racial society but has only adjusted it’s tactics for suppressing black people. Growing up as a black male in America is hard, living life as a convicted felon is twice as hard. As if there aren't enough obstacles or enough adversity that we have to face daily, being label a convicted felon adds to it. It angers me because they aren't being given a chance. Notice I didn’t say a second chance because in the society we live in black men don’t stand a