Analysis Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander is an eye opening book, drawing parallels between modern day America and some of the darkest times in American history. There are underlying themes that highlight and give evidence towards issues, throughout this entire book, that many Americans are unaware of are Institutionalized Racism, War on Drugs, and the Mass Incarceration of American minorities. Certain sections of this book really stood out to me and fascinated me. How could this be happening under so many people’s noses without being brought up? Towards the end of legal segregation focus started to shift to reasoning for poverty and crime. This shift was both in the public discussion as well as rhetoric among lawmakers. Focus to crime was coined

The conservatives believed that certain communities contained detrimental cultures, specifically aimed at black culture, and the racist idea that blacks had a certain pathology that led them to poverty. They highlighted it as even more of a race issue by running with the idea of poverty-stricken whites being the result of racial equalities. Conservatives argued poverty and crime was an issue bleeding over from the poverty-stricken black communities to the nearby poverty-stricken white communities because their schools were more likely to be integrated and they had a much higher job competition. The liberals on the other hand argued that poverty and the crime that seemingly accompanied it was a result of societal problems, an issue that could be resolved through social reform and programs. The conservative argument helped pit the lower class whites against both the blacks as well as the liberal party. This was a political move not far off from political moves during the shift from indentured servitude to African slaves as well as the end of legally named

On the state level the statistic isn’t nearly as high but still shocking to read as drug crimes alone are the cause for half of the rise in the states jail systems. There has been a 1,100 percent increase in the population of inmates at either a state or federal level serving time for drug charges. Alexander points out that 31 million people have been arrested for drug crimes since the beginning of the War on Drugs. I do wonder if this number is individual people as opposed to repeat offenders but either way, this large of a number clearly signifies another issue in the United States besides the massively disproportional population arrest rates, a drug problem that clearly has not been fixed. Instead of helping people in communities through community service or keeping tabs on them with probation we have been locking them into prisons at four times the rate we used