Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness Essay Example
This is a book about the mass incarceration of the African American and other minority races in United States of America. The author explains how the government has devised new ways to oppress the minority through the judicial system by dubbing these strategies as ‘the war on drugs.’ She tries to explain how these strategies are so well hidden that even for her it took a while to realize what was going on around her. Michelle also points out that these racial discrimination strategies were introduced during President Ronald Regan administration and goes further to elucidate how cocaine was imported from Nicaragua by the Central Intelligence Agency and distributed to the inner cities. This was later used as the evidence by the same government to deceive the American people on the serious extent of drug use
...by the minority races in these targeted areas.
Discrimination in the United States of America
This is a must read book; the ideal book to illuminate you on the complex calculative tactics the government applies to ensure that its agendas are reinforced. It should be in your must read list this month and I ensure you that you will suggest it in your book club.
To those who blindly believed that racism ended with the civil rights movement, read this and let it open up your eyes and learn how currently these past norms are slowly creeping back into the American culture. Surprisingly they are fully embraced by the government regardless of an existing Black President in the Whitehouse.
In this book the author, Alexander tries to open our eyes to the fact that racism did not end in the 1960s. However, it
took on another form that seemed justified but in truth was just a way to subjugate the African American community. She goes ahead to give us systematic examples of when and how the government began carrying out this racial control. The book informs us how the government decided the best means of controlling the African American population was through the supposed war on drugs. Specifically, crack cocaine which was the drug of choice in inner city neighborhoods since it was affordable and easily accessible. The government uses this as a tool to incarcerate the black people (52). The book also mentions that the Central Intelligence Agency partly caused the overflow of the drug in the Black neighborhoods. The Agency as well had collaborated with the Nicaragua to bring the drugs in the US with the aim of flooding the Black neighborhoods with it.
According to Alexander, this racial inequality and social crisis started immediately after Ronald Regan became the president and accelerated (pg 47). However, people did not know that the government played a secret hand in the influx of this drug to these neighborhoods and the subsequent campaign to show how much the drug use had escalated. This led to the mass imprisonment of black people over the decades especially the male population fell victim to this trap. Since the government was specifically targeting them, they stood no chance against a system specifically designed to oppress them by imprisoning them and making it almost impossible to develop them once they got out. These policies which were rapidly drawn up and implemented under the Reagan administration continue to ensure that the United States has the highest
incarceration rates in the world. This is as compared to its developed countries or counterparts, and a vast majority of these convictions target African American individuals.
This is despite the fact that the rate of crime remains almost parallel to these other countries and that the perpetrators of these crimes include whites and blacks in equal measure. This has created what Alexander refers to as a caste system. A caste system refers to a regularity where the majority of blacks are constrained in a specific position in the society by policies and laws that hinder their progress. She explains further in the book by highlighting how despite Abraham Lincoln declaration that slavery was abolished not a single slave was emancipated to expresses the elusiveness of Blacks rights (pg 20). Alexander also goes ahead to give an example of the government's commitment to the continuance of this system. In that, she says that in 1973, the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals advised the government to do away with juvenile detention centers and cease building new prisons. However, over the next years, the government ignored this and went ahead to build many more of these detentions centers and prisons. This unusually high rate of incarceration has ensured that nearly one-third of young African Americans have a criminal record. As a result, such youths cannot get employment in meaningful positions. This, in turn, creates an endless cycle of poverty and crime is the result as they seek to get out and make a good life for themselves.
The book tries to show us that despite all the progress we have achieved or think we have achieved,
there is still a deep segregation of African Americans specifically by the government. That fact is silently endorsed by the society since no one wants to speak out against the government. Alexander highlights this by pointing out that the whites have been feeling insecure due to the progress made by the Black community in politics and other influential positions. He as well points out that for years, they have been trying everything possible to reverse these development changes starting with the formation of the Ku Klux Klan (pg 30). Even societies mandated to speak out against racial discrimination remain mum on the issue making it easy for the legal system to continue its selective prosecution based on skin color. People continue to be deceived of the progress of black people when a few of them become exemplary members of society and even the president. Nonetheless, they do not realize that behind the scenes, a majority of them continue to suffer. Alexander goes ahead stating that this system relies on such individuals who excel in order to create a diversion and mass indifference to what is happening hence no one raises any eyebrows, and the system marches on consuming more and younger African Americans.
Though this system is immensely different from the original Jim Crow laws in that the vast majority of people seem oblivious to what is happening, the writer states that the current system is a backlash by the government. This is because the civil rights movement reforms won in the 1960s indicating that not much progress has been achieved in the decades since then. The criminal justice system in the United States continues to
hide this reality behind smoke and mirrors trying to convince the masses that it is not racially biased, but it continues to enforce these incarcerations without a second thought. According to Alexander, at the current rate of imprisonment of African American men, one-third of them will become permanently marginalized to the racist under caste or second class citizens (pg 22). This must be a worrying trend since in some states; African American's contribute a majority of the population; therefore, this would mean subjugating them to poverty. Alexander, consequently, is using this as a wake-up call to all of us to the reality that we are still facing racial segregation on a large scale in the twenty-first century involving all of us. We might not be participating directly in it, but most of us choose to bury our heads in the sand besides letting it get out of control as long as it does not affect us directly.
However there have been a lot of mixed reactions about this book from other historians, activists and authors. The two basic issues of controversy are; the presentation of the white people’s role in segregation and the legitimacy of the author’s conspiracy arguments. Many argue that according to the credited books of history there were many whites who were against segregation and worked together with blacks in sensitizing the country and world as a large. Other scholars explain that the author was to some extent delusional on the matters of creating conspiracies on the racial modern day slavery. They reasoned that the stereotype on black people incarceration was false and only the blacks can change by rehabilitating their environment and
behavior as a community.
In conclusion, though Blacks have made much progress as a community, there has been a lot of racial segregation and victimization. It is true that racism has reduced substantially, but it would be a white lie to say that it does not exist anymore. Over the decades racism has evolved into more covert ways of discrimination and the government has embraced and denied this absolutely, It is evident that the government endorses it and by doing so they automatically classify the African American community as second class citizens. This has been seen through various mentioned legislations and governmentally sanctioned practices.
