The New Jim Crow: Film Analysis

One of the most impactful films we watched in class was the video of Michelle Alexander’s lecture on her book, The New Jim Crow. I’ve heard bits about the book beforehand but watching the award winning author speak on it was truly eye-opening and the information she gave was phenomenal. The topic of her book and in turn the lecture was on the issue of mass incarceration within the U.S. and also how the “War on Drugs” is what made poor communities with people of color the main victims of mass incarceration. She discussed how some poor communities are seen as violent and sketchy because of their high levels of chronic joblessness. Her main point was making listeners aware of how even though we claim to be in an “era of colorblindness,” there

The first social concept that could definitely be applied to the video and Alexander’s work would be the social view of the black community alone. Both Alexander and Conley reflect on how society as a whole has always viewed the African American community as a minority. It’s even been noted that some groups categorized as African Americans such as Cubans, Haitians, and Jamaicans, are attempting to break away from the category and resist the title because of how much the community is marginalized in America (Conley 344). Another social concept that could be applied would be the idea of “equity inequality.” That is basically the reality of how ever since the successes of the civil rights movements, even as people of color fought for their equality and were successful, there are still several somewhat concealed cases of inequality between white people in America and people of color. One evident example being the wage gap between white middle class families and white middle class families (Conley 364). As Alexander pointed out, even in modern day America where all people have their basic human rights, the government and society entirely has covert ways of maintaining white superiority and in turn keeping poor people of color in the margins. Institutional racism was a social concept that I was immediately able to apply to the film. Conley defined institutional racism as “institutions and social dynamics that may seem race-neutral but actually disadvantage minority groups.” (Conley 365). This is exactly what Alexander was exemplifying and alluding to when she discussed the strict laws put on with the “War on Drugs” and how the laws were not fair in the slightest because it was very evident that they mostly affected the poor communities of