ipl-logo

Jim Crow Laws Summary

731 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Racial Profiling in America

Although studies prove that all ethnicities use drugs at about the same rate, the drug laws are enforced overwhelmingly against people of color. Alexander posits that this is not an accident and, rather, the war on drugs is purposefully the latest incarnation of America’s racial caste system. The language had to change because discrimination again a person based on color is illegal; however, Alexander lays out a plethora of evidence to show that drug-war rhetoric is used to oppress people of color the exact same way as Jim Crow laws once were. Instead, of explicit discriminatory laws, Fourth Amendment rights were disintegrated in the name of drug interdiction; there was a rise in exploitation of asset-forfeiture laws; and police forces appear …show more content…

Not even countries known for locking up its citizens, like China, Iran, or Russia come close to the United States’ 700 people living behind bars for every 100,000 people (Kelley & Sterbenz, 2014). Unfortunately, the problem with mass incarceration is not limited to living behind bars. Alexander expertly guides the reader down the rabbit hole of the additional ramifications of being labeled a felon in American society: the complexity of laws that prohibits felons from public assistance, like housing or food stamps, legislation that take away felons’ voting rights, regulations that make it legal for employers to discriminate against felons, and statutes that control felons’ movements and their affiliations. The New Jim Crow further highlights a series of court precedents that make it impractical for defendants to claim the police, the prosecutors, or the justice system is undeniably racist as a defense. Arguably, being a person of color, who is labeled a felon, makes it legal for the rest of society to prevent you from participating in a free society

Show More
Related

Michelle Alexander's Summary

271 Words | 2 Pages

In Michelle Alexander’s talk, she described how discrimination becomes legalized once individuals become branded as a felon. As a result of a felony conviction, tons of offenders lose their right to vote, right to serve on jury, right to be free on legal discrimination regarding housing, and access to education. These restrictions connect to the systems of privilege, as it reinforces the stigma against felons while the social power of law enforcement agencies rises. The systems of privilege get maintained with the use of social control. According to statistics that Alexander gathered, African American males were the ones mostly affected by the felon disenfranchisement laws.

Read More

Summary Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

973 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout chapters four, five and six of The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, I gained a better understanding of the legacy of the war on drugs era policy and the function of the forms of oppression in the criminal justice system. In chapter four, Alexander focuses on the roles and legacy of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. She conveys the fact that although newly freed incarcerated people may have more rights overall, they still arguably have less respect than newly freed enslaved people who were living ‘freely’ in Mississippi at the peak of the Jim Crow Era (Alexander 2010). She goes on to say that although Jim Crow may have been outlawed, new signs have gone up targeting society’s new legal form of second class citizens

Read More

Review Of Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander

1080 Words | 5 Pages

It has been over a decade since Michelle Alexander published “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Her book delves into the complex nuances of mass incarceration in the United States, more specifically pertaining to the criminal justice system’s deeply-ingrained racial biases. She argues, as in reference to the title of her work, that mass incarceration effectively serves as a new form of Jim Crow discrimination and calls for large-scale reform. But in the time since the book’s original release, there have been many significant developments in terms of policy, public opinion, and social movements which warrant elaboration on the themes originally discussed by Alexander. In chapter 3 of “The New Jim Crow,” the

Read More

'The New Jim Crow' By Michelle Alexander

159 Words | 1 Pages

In her article “The New Jim Crow,” Michelle Alexander powerfully argues that the American prison system has become a redesigned form of disenfranchisement of poor people of color and compares it to the racially motivated Jim Crow laws. She supports her assertions through her experiences as a civil rights lawyer, statistical facts about mass incarceration, and by comparing the continued existence of racial discrimination in America today to the segregation and discrimination during the Jim Crow laws. Alexander’s purpose is to reveal the similarities of the discriminatory and segregating Jim Crow laws to the massive influx of incarceration of poor people of color in order to expose that racism evolves to exist in disguised, yet acceptable forms

Read More

Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

1198 Words | 5 Pages

Most slaves lived on enormous plantations that stretched all the way across the South. Field slaves were slaves that la-bored in a little group controlled by what was called a slave driver, who was usually another slave worker. Women usually worked as cooks, maids, and nurses for both the master’s and mistress’s children. Slaves were very well known for being skilled workers, working as carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers. The younger female slaves generally worked as babysitters for the smaller infants or just helped with small chores around the house.

Read More

Jim Crow Law Research Paper

167 Words | 1 Pages

Jim Crow law passed in the late 19th century, kept African Americans, former slaves and their descendants in subordinate positions. The Jim Crow law, in essence, wanted African Americans to know their place and stay in it. The law gave White people the ultimate authority over their well being and lives. The European Jews experienced the same injustices. The most tragic being the Holocaust.

Read More

Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

350 Words | 2 Pages

One of the Jim Crow laws states that “A black male could not offer any part of his body to a White woman because he risked being accused of rape”(a). Tom Robinson would know of this rule and would not even shake hands with Mayella, let alone kiss her. He would know that if anyone saw him going into her house he could be accused of rape. However, if he didn’t enter her house when she asked, he would be accused of not showing “superiority to blacks in all important ways”, another Jim Crow law. Since, Tom knows of these rules he makes the decision to enter her house and show respect, but when he see’s Mr. Ewell approaching her house he runs in fear of being accused of rape.

Read More

Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

307 Words | 2 Pages

Definition of Jim Crow: a practice or a policy of segregation or discriminating against blacks, as in public places, public vehicles, employment, and voting. So where did this word Jim Crow come from? Its uncertain where it came from but Dr. Pilgrim from Ferris State University believes its from the 1830s a song sung by Thomas Rice, and later he made a dance for it, and then white men used charcoal to make themselves appear black. Jim Crow laws started around the 1870’s and it legalized segregation between white and colored. After the civil war was a period down south called the reconstruction, at this time the federal government controlled the southern states.

Read More

Review Of Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness By Michelle Alexander

983 Words | 4 Pages

She first supports her claim by chronicling America 's history of institutionalized racism and systematic disenfranchisement of African Americans. Then, she discusses America 's War on Drugs that disproportionately targets minorities and finally as she examines the hardship faced by felons she compares and contrasts Jim Crow Laws to mass incarceration. Alexander surmises that mass incarceration is designed to maintain white supremacy and sustain a racial classification system. Alexander 's book is relevant to my research paper because she provides evidence that the criminal justice system is rooted in racism and directly linked to the racist agenda of the white supremacist. Broussard, B. (2015).

Read More

Summary Of The New Jim Crow

251 Words | 2 Pages

In the opening of the introduction of The New Jim Crow the author clearly outlines the power of one race to another for example how the great-great grandfather of Jarvis’s Cotton was denied to vote for being a slave (Alexander 2010). The great grandfather of Jarvis’s beaten to death by the Klan for attempting to vote (Alexander 2010) and Jarvis himself could not vote because he was labeled as a felon. Most offenders today that get out from prison face discrimination in voting, employment, housing and receiving public assistance linking toward the Jim Crow era. Most incarcerated individuals are still racially segregated which racial bias still exist in our criminal justice system today not only in the Southern states. Some people still believe

Read More

Causes Of Felon Disenfranchisement

142 Words | 1 Pages

Felon Disenfranchisement has emerged as popular and topic in recent political agendas. Felon Disenfranchisement is defined as, “The removing of a felon’s civil liberties while incarcerated and/or past their prison sentence” (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2016). Generally, disenfranchisement is seen as a retributive form of punishment. Arguably, the rights that are removed from felons during disenfranchisement are seen as essential to the American Identity. Supporters argue that people that break the law should not partake in the process of it and argue that the potential loss of these basic American civil liberties can provide deterrence.

Read More

Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

1010 Words | 5 Pages

Jim Crow Laws In The American South Rampant racism in the American south is nothing new. We’ve all heard the stories of the civil war and of Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. But we never truly hear how extensive racism in America was. Few white Americans get to know the full extent of race relations across the south and I believe the biggest example of this to be the Jim Crow era of America.

Read More

Disenfranchisement Pros And Cons

1417 Words | 6 Pages

The political debate for and against felon disenfranchisement has compelling arguments on both sides. In the US, over 6 million felons are barred from voting due to laws that prevent felons with a sentence to vote (Chung). The number of imprisoned has been growing over the past 40 years, as the increasing number of imprisoned felons is directly correlated with an increasing number of disenfranchised felons. However, a more jarring statistic reveals that most disenfranchised felons in the United States are of a racial or ethnic minority. Based on information from the 2010 US Census Bureau, about 36 percent of disenfranchised felons are African American.

Read More

Jim Crow Laws Research Paper

1459 Words | 6 Pages

"Let us look at Jim Crow for the criminal he is and what he has done to one life multiplied millions of times over these United States and the world. He walks us on a tightrope from birth"- Rosa Parks. Jim crow was a set of formal codes put into place to separate white people from colored people. These set of codes started after the end of slavery in the civil war it was a period of time that is called the reconstruction period the Jim Crow laws first started in 1877 and ended in the 1950’s with the civil rights movements. This essay about Jim Crow Laws will mainly be talking about three main points the origins of Jim Crow, what it was like to live in Jim Crow south and the different events it caused, and how it ended and the effects it still

Read More

Jim Crow Laws

452 Words | 2 Pages

What comes next is a very much needed, but undoubtedly a grim chapter in our nation's brief history, the atrocious Civil war known as "a new birth of freedom" said by no one other than Abraham Lincoln himself. With the southern states succeeding from the northern states, this quite literally cut the country right in half. With the north or the Union is against slavery and the south or the Confederacy is pro-slavery, thus providing even more encouragement among free blacks in the north to fight against the tyrannical south. It is noted that when it was all said and done African-Americans accounted for around ten percent of the union army. This is due to the promises of being considered equals among their fellow citizens.

Read More

More about Jim Crow Laws Summary

Open Document