Summary Of The New Jim Crow By Michelle Alexander

In the work The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander raises an issue of present-day racial discrimination, its causes and effects on modern society. She says that when Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American President of the United States, it became a triumph of justice and equality. However, she argues that the “racial caste is alive and well in America” (2010), and provides convincing statistics to support her ideas. She says that “There are more African Americans under correctional control today - in prison or jail, on probation or parole - than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began” (2010). The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) presents information on its website about racial

However, a number of African Americans, who were convicted of a felony, are disproportionately high nowadays. Michelle Alexander considers that It has led to the creation of “a new racial undercaste” (2010). Actually, in our time, discrimination affects every aspect of political, economic, and social life of the people who was charged with a serious criminal offence. In this regard, she mentions the law “banning drug felons from public housing …and denying them basic public benefits for life” (2010). We live in a “colorblind society” that pretends the racial disparity and discrimination do not exist. However, in fact, nowadays a huge number of African Americans are regularly deprived of their basic civil rights on the base of the Felon disenfranchisement

Nevertheless, actually, many people have a strong racial prejudice. Anthony Walton reveals it in his work My Secret Life as a Black Man. He discusses the right of individual to personal identity and portrays an irreconcilable conflict between an individual's desire for authenticity and racial stereotyping and prejudices in society. Unfortunately, the power of stereotypes is manifested in all aspects of our life. Walton wants to distance himself from the society that tries to shape his views, attitudes and behavioral norms. He talks about “a secret life” because his inner world with its true thoughts, feelings and emotions is deeply hidden. Walton states that people are enable “to perceive others in any fashion other than as stereotypes” (n.d., p. 131). He depicts society splitting into two opposing parts, black and white; and he, like a restless wanderer, belongs to none of these groups. He describes, “When white strangers gazed upon me, they saw only what their culture and society had constructed and coded as a “black man.” And a six-foot, two-hundred-fifty pound one at that – a threat to doormen, security guards, and cabdrivers; someone suspicious, dangerous, but irrelevant” (n.d., p. 131). On the other hand, he is not “black enough” to be accepted by a black