The New Jim Crow Analysis

As our society has grown in a multitude of ways, it has remained the same concerning the systematic treatment of minority groups, especially African American people. Michelle Alexander, the author of The New Jim Crow, writes about how America has encouraged and allowed the rebirth of a new caste system through implementation of mass incarceration (2011). The creation of this new system, only backed the critical race theory that argues white racism is constructed socially and historically in America (Simba 2015). She outlines that slavery and Jim Crow laws have been redesigned into the war on drugs which has allowed the police to target communities of color and therefore keep blacks in a position of inferiority. Many factors come into play

Slavery, coupled with Jim Crow laws, set the tone early for racial inequality. Blacks quickly learned their place in society; a place at the bottom filled with no rights, fear, and the idea that they would always be less than their white counterparts. Graff writes, "What followed slavery was the "old" Jim Crow, lynching, disenfranchisement, an economic system that left little room for ambition or hope and perpetuated unequal educational resources, terrorism, racial, caricatures, and every form of humiliation and brutalization imaginable" (2015). From the very beginning it is clear that African Americans had some atrocities committed against them, but it didn't end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Blacks had but a brief moment of freedom before another cruel system was put into place to help them remember where they belonged. Convict leasing camps, where prisoners are rented to planters or industrialists who would pay them little for their work but rid the state of housing or feeding those convicts, were created. Blacks found themselves in these camps that, in ways, were worse than slavery (Alexander 2011). From the time of the Civil War, the whites' wish to remain the race of influence and power was clearly defined. When slavery was abolished and Jim Crow became unlawful there had to be an alternative system in order for whites

It can be difficult for past criminals to survive and make a living once they are out of jail (Alexander 2011). One of the first things a person is faced with is the amount of debt they have accrued while in jail. For example, current or former inmates are required to pay any program fees, restitution, child support, and any other fees in order to regain licenses or voting rights (Alexander 2011; Lobuglio and Piehl 2015). They are also forced to check the box indicating to employers that they have been convicted of a felony, making the application process stops there, regardless of what crime the person committed (Alexander 2011; Lobuglio and Piehl 2015). As if those set backs are not enough, former inmates are usually denied any government assistance including food stamps or government housing, forcing felons to stay with family members or desperately try to find somewhere they are allowed (Alexander 2011). This often leads them back into communities that attract police attention and ultimately back into the system (Lobuglio and Piehl 2015). The worst post-incarceration punishment is that their right to vote is taken away. This disenfranchisement can be extremely frustrating because these people are no longer able to have a say in laws that effect them