Incarceration In The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, introduces the topic of mass incarceration by referring to Barack Obama's speech regarding black men being “better fathers” on Father’s Day. Although several black celebrities, like Bill Cosby and Louis Farrakhan, who “summoned one million black men for a day of “atonement” and recommit to their families and communities” (p. 179) already mentioned the absences of black fathers, media treated the event as memorable. Despite the fact that Obama is aiming to bring families and communities together, media and politicians refuse to acknowledge why there are missing fathers in several families. Though these important individuals want to speak about these family problems, they are afraid to mention that the

Knowing these facts, she also mentions how society disregards these men in prison because they’re focused on successful black celebrities, like Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, as well as media promoting stereotypes on the War on Drugs. Acknowledging that mass incarceration is now the new “normal,” Alexander argues that it has become normalized due to individuals “knowing and not knowing (p. 182). To elaborate, individuals know and choose to ignore (not know) the fact that black men being incarcerated is unjust knowing, or not knowing, that white people are more likely to commit the same crimes and not being criminalized for it. (p. 182). Also, she shortly mentions that the future generation will ask how we have let mass incarceration become normalized without taking action and argues that current society should take responsibility on how they can change the system that is currently

Alexander then argues that mass incarceration is the new norm precisely resembles the racist system: Jim Crow because black males in the current society are equally as trapped as black individuals during the Jim Crow era. Black males are therefore trapped in the mass incarceration system, “competing on an unequal level towards success,” in order to keep white males on the top of our society. Alexander creates connections between the two caste systems and describing it as a “symbolic production of race,” the most important parallel. She argues that the production of race was created to stereotype black men as criminals and makes society believe so by generating propaganda, giving the government an excuse to criminalize black men more than white men, although they’re more likely to professionally sell drugs and not get criminalized for it, and making society support mass incarceration (p.