Discrimination of African Americans: Jim Crow's Laws

More and more African Americans are under the cruel hand of the criminal equity framework in place today, either in jail or placed in correctional facilities. If the following individuals aren’t in jail they are either on parole or post-trial supervision. Discrimination is still very evident in voters’ rights, employment, and education, which numerous Americans believed to be wiped out by the social liberties laws that took place in the 1960s.

It is currently wrongfully lawful against anybody marked as a criminal under the watchful eyes of the law. Also, since numerous African Americans are more incarcerated than whites they are made into criminals by the whole arrangement of mass detainment, racial separation stays as great as it was under subjugation or under the time of Jim Crow segregation. This is the start of a book which has started another social revolution, Alexander portrays how mass imprisonment today fills the indistinguishable need from pre-Civil War subjugation and the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws to keep up a racial rank framework. She essentially uses the phrase “racial caste” she defines this by elaborating and stating that “racial caste” is put on the minorities and locks them in to a second-rate position that is regulated by the law.

Proceeding to add that our current form of mass imprisonment is in fact a “caste system” comparing it to other “castes systems” in our country’s history such as Jim Crowe laws and slavery were all apart of said system. Upon commencing the first chapter the author begins to discuss how all this mess started, going back to dissect our nations unforgivable passed decisions and how they have resurfaced time and time again. For example. Alexander goes on to state that slavery along with Jim Crowe laws appear to die off to please the masses but then in fact these “castes” are renewed and custom-made to the constrictions of the time they are currently in. She begins to point out that they have succeeded in applying new “castes systems” by appealing to the lower class racist whites who are a group of individuals who dangerously impatient to ensure that they themselves never end up confined at the bottom of our Nations hierarchy.

This design was derived from slavery and has created up till now another “racial caste” and that is mass incarceration in our country. Through her research it was discovered that an enormous financial incentives were granted to law enforcement officials to pursue massive drug arrests by the use of military planned tactics. As soon as an individual is in the system, their chances of getting out are very unlikely, they are also denied significant legal representation leaving them crippled in the court room. More often than not, these affected individuals are cornered into a plea bargain that’s very lengthy and placed in prison. But it does not stop there, the few lucky men that are granted release are exceedingly discriminated by potential employers due to their record and will most likely revert back to crime and back into prison in result which is discussed later in the book. She really reinforces her main points by then pointing to the criminal justice system of our country and discrediting the belief that the imprisonment of black men can be illuminated by crime rate statistics.

Identifying that there is a huge racial inconsistency at every step of the legal process, guaranteeing that these African American men are the vast under caste. Providing a good deal of useful statistics and info; added a significant amount of strength to her arguments that they are basically stockpiling at this point and there were no weaknesses present in them that are existing. Upon my first reading of the book when I saw her notion that “caste systems” were created to suppress the minorities and will always find its way back into our country, I saw it as a bit of an overreaching theme. But, once I divulged into each passing chapter her arguments became more and more evident. It is not an overreaching theme and something has to be done, too many good individuals are trapped from seeing their families to name a few burdens and are also living a suppressed half-life. “Where do we go from here?” one might ask, well we can start by recognizing the existence of the new Jim Crow and by creating a major shakeup and gathering the masses together to pull apart these established “caste systems”. Significant modifications to these laws can be obtained as well by having a complete agreement on getting rid of the current system in place.