The New Jim Crow Book Essay Example

form of criminal offense were stripped of their homes and business enterprises in the year 1942. Although they were never convicted of any crime, mere suspects were arrested; the government confiscated their property and imprisoned them based on their color, their national identity or that of their parents. This form of abuse substituted the skin color and national identity as forms of evidence that warranted punishment. Edward contends that the internment of the Japanese-Americans was actually a traditional American abuse.

Although it was regarded as one of the worst mistreatment American government subjected to its citizens, it was not the only one. At that time, there was existence of formal racial segregation and Jim Crow Laws in most parts of South America. Such abuses were highly reified that no American citizen would ever imagine it could end (Glasser, 1999). Alexander posits that the war on drugs is the primary tool used to enforce the traditional modes of repression through the criminal justice system of the US. The new racial outfits have led to the highest rates of prison restraint in the world as well as the greatest Imprisonment for the African American citizens.

Alexander puts it that incase such trends would have to proceed, then the US justice system would have more than a third of the population in prison. Relying on the fact that the whites are more susceptible to effects of drug abuse as compared to the blacks, the argument becomes clearer where Alexander states, “reality is that, for the reasons largely unrelated to actual crime trends, the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history” (8). This

new form of target makes Alexander believe that mass incarceration is stun, comprehensive and well-concealed system of racial social control functioning in a way similar to that of Jim Crow. It is out of the heightened system of social control that Alexander now refers to as the “racial caste system,” (11) a form construction in which the African-Americans are kept inferior.

The emergence of this directly responds to movement of civil rights. Through her book, Alexander targets the civil rights community with a sole aim to mobilize them put forward the issue of mass incarceration as the prime agenda to provide factual truth, arguments, data and a point of inference regarding racial discrimination. Most importantly, she aims to deconstruct the prevailing notion regarding the equality and human rights issues in America to stop the cyclic recurrence of what she describes as a form of “racialized social control”, which is under a changing disguise (13). Alexander argues that labelling people of color as criminals gives room to unleash a whole manner of discrimination measures starting from employment, voting rights, housing, education and public benefits.

She confesses that despite her professional background in matters of civil rights, it took her several years to learn and conform to the phenomena she stunningly describes. As such, she expects her readers receive her message with a little bit of disbelief and reluctance. She believes that intentional government policies are the real cause of the problems affecting the communities with African American origin and not just collateral, mere side effects of other factors such as poverty and limited opportunities to acquiring education. Alexander reveals how Reagan Administration began escalating the war on Drugs

back in 1982 while cracking cocaine crisis within the black ghettos (105). The government, however, announced the escalation some days before the escalation was done in the neighborhood inner cities. Again, in 1980s, the drug authorities in the federal government publicized the issue as the use of cocaine in the neighborhoods had reached unprecedented levels.

They used scary tactics to amass support for the escalation they had already declared. The government carried out one of the most successful media campaigns to expand the activities that would lead to law enforcement in the inner-city neighborhoods of America. This was such an aggressive approach that it led to a widespread belief that the government wanted to destroy the blacks through conspiracy theories. This revelation goes hand in hand with Cockburn and Saint (1998)’s account of the acknowledgement made by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that the Contra faction was involved in cocaine smuggling in the US by the help of the US government in Nicaragua back in 1980s. Reagan officials worked hard to block the efforts made by Drug Enforcement Administration to expose the illegal escapades.

This largely contributed to heightened rate of crack cocaine abuse in the inner city neighborhoods of the US. When a more aggressive enforcement of drug laws were adopted, it exploded into street arrests and desperate sentencing policies that led to high number of inner-city residents being charged and sentenced for long-term imprisonment. There is a poor correlation between crime and punishment according to Alexander. She notes that there is a soaring rate in the rate of incineration by the American government and yet the crime rates are generally similar to other western countries

where the rates of incineration remain stable.

Quantitatively, she argues that In the US, the “rate is six to ten times greater than of other industrialized countries” (8). She maintains that the existing disparities are related to neither the increased rate of crime nor the actual rates but rather they are due to an artificial invocation on War against Drugs and the associated discriminatory policies. She criticizes the American government for failing to adhere to the recommendations put forward by the justice department to do away with the existing juvenile detention facilities because they only increase the juvenile crime rates rather than reducing. Just after several decades, the government embarked on a negative approach to expand the juvenile detention facilities. The book does not fail to recognize the role of the contemporary civil rights community in this issue. She criticizes the community for putting much of their concentration on how to protect the gains in affirmative action that mainly benefits the elite group within the African-Americans.

She feels that civil rights movement groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus of 2009 and NAACP do not fully appreciate the capacity of the crisis despite having legal actions and grassroots campaigns. She maintains that civil rights movement faces a backlash due to the disastrous manifestation of mass incineration and that those who believe that president Obama’s election signified “the nation’s triumph over race“ were highly misguided (11). Alexander describes the mass incarceration structure in much detail with a deep focus on war on drugs. She argues that there are only a few legal laws that significantly impede the police in their fight against drugs and thus the government grants

attractive financial incentives to the law enforcers to meaningfully engage in massive drug arrests using military tactics.

Once someone is swept into the system, the chances of being free become minimal. Defendants are always on the receiving end where they are denied meaningful legal representation; they are pressurized by being threatened with lengthy sentences and finally left in prisons, jails, parole or probation in the name of formal controls. The worst of them all, the ex-offenders become victims of legal discrimination for the better part of their lives that most return to prison in the end. These, Alexander describe them as “members of the America’s new undercaste” (13).

Alexander goes ahead to point out the role race plays within the criminal justice system of the US. She terms this as “The Color of Justice” (97). She mentions how a formerly fair judicial system could turn out and arrest, imprison and execute an extraordinary number of men of color when they are by no means likely to be guilty of criminal offenses related to drugs than the whites. She debunks the myth that the rate of black men imprisonment is directly proportional to crime rates and thus goes ahead to mention racial disparities that take place at every stage of the criminal justice system.

She mentions the initial stop phase, the search stage until the time of arrest, plea-bargaining and finally the sentencing stages. Essentially, this explains how legal principles that define the judicial system create an ample space for discrimination by ensuring that a considerable number of the under caste are blacks and browns. The book considers the operation of the caste system immediately people are freed from

prison. It states that the release in many cases does not guarantee freedom and but rather a cruelly new phase that brings forth acts of stigmatization and control.

During this phase, weird laws, rules and regulations come into play to discriminate against the ex-convicts thus effectively impeding their meaningful integration into the prevailing economy. At this level, Alexander argues that shame and stigmatization that comes because of the “prison label” becomes more damaging to the citizens whose origin stem from the African-American community than even the characteristic shame and stigmatization of the Jim Crow. She claims that this kind of demonization leveled against black men turns the community against itself, it unravels the existing community and family ties, it decimates the networks necessary for mutual support and intensifies “the shame and self-hate experienced by the current pariah caste” (17). For the better part of the book, Alexander identifies the parallels that exist between Jim Crow and mass incarceration.

Just like the Jim Crow, the current mass incarceration continues to marginalize a greater number of the African-Americans; it physically segregates them through jails, prisons and ghettos, and mandates the discrimination against them through jury services, voting, employment and other public benefits (283). Again, the current federal court system continues to offer immunity to the current legal system based on legal biasness just as the US court protected and endorsed the earlier legal control systems. Another parallel mentioned is that just as the old Jim Crow; Mass incarceration significantly defines new forms of racism in the U.S. since stigmatization based on criminality tends to function the same way as racism stigma. Due to the prevalent mass incarceration, the boundary

cutting between “us” and “them” is justified (18).

She mentions the slim differences that exist between Jim Crow, acts of slavery and mass incarceration. One fact that stands out very clearly is that while earlier systems functionally exploited and controlled black labor, mass incarceration warehouses a disposable population deemed unnecessary to the wellbeing of the global economy. Through her book, Alexander contents that even though the white population has not been the primary target of the current system, “the suffering in the drug war crosses the color line” (205). This effectively explains how a racial system can negatively affect people of all colors. She goes ahead to respond to those who were skeptical of her mass incarceration concept claiming that the concept cannot be regarded as a racial caste because citizens of all races support the tough criminal policies.

Most insisted that Alexander repackaged and augmented the research on social justice that is in existence to only suit the needs of middle-class white consumers. By so doing, they claim that Alexander’s analogy is strained when put in relation to the original Jim Crow laws, it is counterrevolutionary and tends to marginalize the people of color in favor of less radical ideologies. She responds to these claims by stating that such claims are no longer persuasive as they used to be long ago, when all citizens, blacks and whites claimed that reality was reflected through acts of racial segregation. Towards the end, Alexander gives a reflection of what the future of civil rights advocacy means by acknowledging the prevailing New Jim Crow.

She argues that only a major social movement can overhaul the current caste system. Although he acknowledges

the importance of the meaningful reforms without such a movement, she insists that foundation upon which the new caste system is built can only change if the “public consensus” that supports this system overturns (223). Again, simply relying on the broad-based social movement can never be enough since it is not easy to persuade the voters how the current system has relied heavily on incarceration and that rather than being a crime, drug abuse is simply but a health issue. She mentions that the emergent social movement must squarely confront the basic structure of racism and must cultivate “an ethic of genuine care, concern and concern for every human being” regardless of the social affiliation (258).

She states that even if the movement collapses the prevailing mass incarceration without achieving the two aspects, then it will never wade off the system of racial caste in the US. A newly unforeseen system of racialized control would inevitably emerge just as the current new system of Jim Crow was never predicted beforehand Alexander is not the only one to consider the concept of mass incarceration as highly inclined to people of a particular race. She only explores more deeply and succinctly than the work of many other renowned scholars. For instance, Kennedy (2009) too argues that the repudiated means of criminal rehabilitation targets majorly young men from the blacks different from the rest of the citizens from the American society.

He mentions that no one group will ever be contented with long terms of forced confinement while bearing the stigma criminal offenses in all the recurrent spheres that underpin social life. He criticizes such kind of profound illegitimate social

retribution as one that rolls back the gains of citizenship hard won during the civil rights movement. He claims that those people who were incarcerated experienced difficulties in their marriage and even parenting. Although the incarcerated race only used illegal drugs three quarter times the rate of other races, then it was four times likely to be convicted of criminal drug offenses than other races (Kennedy, 2009). In conclusion, Alexander’s “New Jim Crow” Book challenges readers as well as the civil rights society to prioritize mass incarceration as a new form of movement to attain racial justice in America.

The book acts as a valuable contributor to the understanding of the context sensitive concept of Jim Crow, racism and mass incarceration. The book effectively builds upon the account of the pioneering authors to provide an enthusiastically moving, deeply vigorous and intellectually argued account on the prevailing issue of mass incarceration. Throughout the book, Alexander revisits the racial history of the US starting from the colonial era until the Clinton’s administration to delineate its transformation through the war on drugs. One point to note is that contrary to the positive racial picture embodied in Obama’s presidential success, Oprah’s financial breakthrough, racial caste is still a menace in America, and if anything, it has only been redesigned.

As stated from the onset, the book may not receive a positive reception by anyone. The book has a specific audience, which is deeply concerned with racial justice and yet has not appreciated the weight of the crisis communities of color face out of the prevailing challenge of mass incarceration.

References

• Alexander, M. (2010) The new Jim Crow: Mass incarceration in
  

the age of colorblindness