The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander Summary
While working for the American Civil Liberties Union, Michelle Alexander’s perspective changed as she gained insight on the racial bias in our criminal justice system and how it has been altered throughout time. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindless, Alexander compares our current justice system to the Jim Crow laws of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which enforced racial segregation, by calling our system “The New Jim Crow.”
Alexander describes America’s racial history in depth by covering slavery, the Civil War, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The author also explains that The War on Drugs in the 1980s was not based on correct statistics about drug use, but rather to satisfy white people. During this time period, society was often harsher in criminal cases, especially with the media’s influence through …show more content…
Changing our situation would not be an easy task, and the loopholes our government uses to carefully word things in a seemingly fair way makes people doubt that this situation is serious or important. Many years of stereotypes and media embellishment have allowed our criminal justice system to weaken.
While reading The New Jim Crow, I appreciated Alexander’s clarification that she does not believe Jim Crow and the New Crow are identical because there are, in fact, many contrasting traits. Although both of these circumstances somewhat, if not completely, revolve around racist ideas, it is obvious that one is not identical to the other. It is clear that today’s society is less aggressive and violent, even though it is still racist. It is rigorous enough already for any minority to fit into the absurd standards of white
Alexander describes America’s racial history in depth by covering slavery, the Civil War, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. The author also explains that The War on Drugs in the 1980s was not based on correct statistics about drug use, but rather to satisfy white people. During this time period, society was often harsher in criminal cases, especially with the media’s influence through …show more content…
Changing our situation would not be an easy task, and the loopholes our government uses to carefully word things in a seemingly fair way makes people doubt that this situation is serious or important. Many years of stereotypes and media embellishment have allowed our criminal justice system to weaken.
While reading The New Jim Crow, I appreciated Alexander’s clarification that she does not believe Jim Crow and the New Crow are identical because there are, in fact, many contrasting traits. Although both of these circumstances somewhat, if not completely, revolve around racist ideas, it is obvious that one is not identical to the other. It is clear that today’s society is less aggressive and violent, even though it is still racist. It is rigorous enough already for any minority to fit into the absurd standards of white