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Racial Caste System In The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

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In the article, The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, she explores a subject that most people ignore; that is a racial caste system exists in America. Specifically, she asserts that mass incarceration is a new racial caste system which provides context for the political, social and economic problems, represents the New Jim Crow. In post Jim Crow society, Alexander empathizes, we have adopted to the colorblind perspective, which states that race is not being justified for discrimination or social contempt. Instead of relying on race, we use our criminal justice system to label colored people as criminals. Once we labeled them as criminals, all forms of discrimination will be legal against people of color. Alexander mentions that the fire of a racial caste system is still burning, we have not put it out. Specifically, our criminal justice …show more content…

Further, the drug war labeled blacks as drug dealers. This lead to the mass incarceration of African Americans for relatively minor crimes, and sentence time is even longer than that of a murderer. Since African Americans were labeled as drug dealers, they were denied food stamps, employment and housing benefits. There were several consequences; physical and mental resulting from mass incarceration. Alexander mentions that these individuals were denied employment or lost their jobs, forced to participate in exploitative labor, the stigma associated with what these individuals are labeled as, affect their child support, and finally make them feel hopeless. Jim Crow, slavery and the mass incarceration are system of laws, and policies to maintain power inferiority among people of color. Alexander asserts that colorblindness cause Jim Crow to “continue” to exist. Specifically, the U.S Supreme court is not interested in how severe the racism is and its impacts. Therefore, racial injustice continues to exist, and that mass incarceration is like the Jim

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