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The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration Analysis

1487 Words6 Pages

To begin with, our class material and content ranged from pervasive novels and excerpts to compelling documentaries and talks. Consequently, many class assignments left students grappling with the issues of mass incarceration and experiences with race. I insist that, due to this exposure, my most important learning was being challenged to keep my mind open to and critically thinking about situations and perspectives that I had not been aware of or experienced.
The first example that comes to mind was learning about the harsh realities of the discrimination against ex-convicts in Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Michelle Alexander, a civil rights lawyer and legal scholar, argues not only that mass incarceration is a “well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow"(4), but that the prison label placed on convicts is “more damaging to the African American community than the shame and stigma associated with Jim Crow’ (17). While I had previous knowledge of the systematic racial oppression that continues to hold power in our country, I did not have any idea of to what extent the label of ‘felon’ has on the life …show more content…

(143) Consequently, Alexander wants us to know from this just how much ex-felons are treated as second class citizens, if even citizens, in our own country. Through this course, by discussing Alexander’s argument on life after prison, I have opened my eyes to the reality of the harsh treatment of ex-convicts in this country. I now feel it is important to be aware of and fight for the rights of those released from our corrupt prison system so that they can be given a real second

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While I was viewing these articles, I really started to get angry inside. I understood all this exists, but reading it over and over again brings me back to remember how serious this situation is. Many of these topics was covered in the book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, but these articles are bringing up topics that I never even considered. Such as, in the Silverstein’s article it said “Discrimination has been shown to increase the risk of stress, depression, the common cold, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, and mortality. ”(Silverstein)

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Slavery is over therefore how can racism still exist? This has been a question posed countlessly in discussions about race. What has proven most difficult is adequately demonstrating how racism continues to thrive and how forms of oppression have manifested. Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, argues that slavery has not vanished; it instead has taken new forms that allowed it to flourish in modern society. These forms include mass incarceration and perpetuation of racist policies and societal attitudes that are disguised as color-blindness that ultimately allow the system of oppression to continue.

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