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Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Color Blindness By Michelle Alexander

1217 Words5 Pages

In Michelle Alexander’s book, “The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness,” Alexander addresses a topic that many may not know is happing. Alexander addresses the racism towards people of color by using the legal system as a tool to legally segregate people of color as well as poor whites. Alexander touches upon the way politicians use the war on drugs as an excuse to build more jails to incarcerate poor people of color. She also talks about the way police use racial profiling. Alexander explains how political figures created a way to convince the people into the idea that the crime rate was a very serious issue that needed attention as a result of fearing “black progress.” Political figures called this “the war on …show more content…

As a result police officers have become a major key in the arrests of many people of color. Alexander explains how police will stop and search people of color who are “suspected” of containing drugs or who look “suspicions.” Police officers are actually encouraged in their training to use racial profiling and when a person files a complaint the Courts always take the side of the police officer. As stated by Alexander, “The dirty little secret of policing is that the Supreme Court has actually granted the police license to discriminate” (130). Many would argue that police officers and the justice system are fair and that they don’t discriminate and that one does have a fair trial in court from all the lies the media and television shows feeds the people about the justice system and police force. However this is far from the truth, as Alexander explains in her book, most of the people being stopped and searched are people of color and a person of color is more likely to get stopped by police then a white person. When a police officer finds drugs on a white teenager they just call it “experimenting” but when a colored teenager gets caught with drugs they call him a criminal and may get arrested. Alexander states that majority of people arrested are not charged with serious offences like jay …show more content…

Many don’t speck of this reality many people of color are facing today. Many are oblivious to what is going on because main stream media will never talk about issues like this. People of color are convicted of minor crimes that go ignored when whites commit the same crime and the punishment is not as harsh. These mass incarcerations can be seen as a system to control people of color, minorities, and poor whites in order to benefit the rich. There should be a law that prohibits harsh punishments for minor misdemeanors. One should even question the need for the 13th amendment that “abolishes” slavery but is then legal as a punishment for a crime. In order to stop anyone from taking advantage of this, slavery should be completely abolished. Or in the very least explain when a crime is deserving of being a salve so that it’s not taken advantage by the rich, whom are the ones getting wealthier with this cheap labor. In the beginning it was plantations and now its

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