{"id":217,"date":"2024-12-05T04:31:14","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T04:31:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wri101.vvb.dcreate.domains\/?p=217"},"modified":"2024-12-07T04:32:06","modified_gmt":"2024-12-07T04:32:06","slug":"essay-3-revised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wri101.vvb.dcreate.domains\/?p=217","title":{"rendered":"Essay 3 Revised"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To Be Or Not To Be: Mass Incarceration and The New Jim Crow<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

Introduction:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cLife without liberty is like a body without spirit.\u201d \u2013 Kahlil Gibran.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The old Jim Crow laws were a set of institutions set in place to limit the rights and freedoms of Black Americans after slavery ended in the states. Racial-based segregation, black voter disenfranchisement, and restrictions on Black Americans\u2019 economic and geographic mobility (Althoff and Reichardt 2280) plagued America for almost 100 years. Jim Crow\u2019s reign of terror persisted until the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1960s, which outlawed racial discrimination. Some believe that a New Jim Crow has risen in the form of mass incarceration. This can be seen in The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010), where Michelle Alexander discusses how the seemingly racially neutral criminal justice policies unfairly target black communities. The parallels between the modern criminal justice system and the racial system of segregation of the past highlight how both systems work to marginalize and control a significant portion of the black population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do agree that mass incarceration and its so-called \u201cracially neutral\u201d policies are perpetuating racial hierarchy. The way the system unfairly targets black communities and the damage it has caused is obvious and present today. My friends, many of whom are people of color, and I often make jokes about this tension. When we hear sirens, we jokingly run or hide, but in this humor still lies the truth; if stopped, one wrong move, whether we are innocent or guilty, could mean our incarceration. James Forman Jr. states, the \u201canalogy effectively draws attention to the plight of black men whose opportunities in life have been permanently diminished by the loss of citizenship rights and the stigma they suffer as convicted offenders.\u201d However, Forman and I agree that the analogy has its limits, mainly being that, unlike the old Jim Crow, mass incarceration affects a broader spectrum than just Black Americans. The New Jim Crow analogy neglects other marginalized groups besides Black Americans, such as the Hispanic and Latino communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, I will primarily critique Michelle Alexander\u2019s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (2010). Due to the persuasive language she uses supported by strong statistics and evidence, it\u2019s hard to challenge the analogy. While making the point that mass incarceration especially affects Black Americans, she tends to use terms, statistics, and recounts that also include the Latino and Hispanic communities. This use of vague language provides grounds that the analogy of the New Jim Crow is not a good fit for the system of mass incarceration because it affects more groups than just Black Americans, unlike the old Jim Crow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its A Range:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Michelle Alexander primarily disagrees that the criminal justice system is colorblind, processing people regardless of race. Nonetheless, as the US has become the world\u2019s largest jailer; black men have been imprisoned at 6.5 times the rate of white men (Forman 22). Alexander adds that \u201c[one] in three young African American men will serve time in prison if current trends continue\u201d (11). In addition, in some cities, more than half of all young adult black men are currently under correctional control whether that be in prison or jail, on probation or parole (11). Once they are labeled as felons, African Americans are faced with legalized discrimination including employment, housing, education, and voting rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, Alexander presents that the War on Drugs, which was originally meant to combat drug trafficking and drug abuse, disproportionately targeted communities of color and incarcerated them. The media campaigns for the War on Drugs were saturated with images of black \u201ccrack whores,\u201d \u201ccrack dealers,\u201d and \u201ccrack babies\u201d (6), reinforcing negative racial stereotypes of those in impoverished inner-city areas. These factors reinforce why the New Jim Crow analogy is so convincing. Yet, what makes the analogy lose its grounding is that much of the evidence and statistics include other marginalized minority groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When writing, though using synonyms for words to decrease repetition is important, the context is very influential to the argument. Alexander often uses \u201cpeople of color\u201d as a synonym for Black Americans. While Black Americans do fall under the term people of color, so do Hispanics, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and many more. The same applies to Alexander\u2019s usage of \u201cblack and brown people,\u201d which brown can also refer to South Asian Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Latino Americans. Although brown skin can refer to Black Americans physically, the term does not exclusively describe this group. Besides the choice of wording, Alexander uses evidence that includes Latino or Hispanic people in tandem with Black Americans. Although the rates of incarceration for Latinos and Hispanics are lower than those of Black Americans, they are still affected by the system of mass incarceration. Even so, Alexander stated that \u201cninety percent of those admitted to prison for drug offenses in many states were Black or Latino\u201d (73). Including Latinos in her statistics, makes mass incarceration not solely a Black targeted issue, thus not Jim Crow. When talking about the War on Drugs, Alexander uses a story from Village Voice that recounts how \u201c[dozens] of black and Latino victims\u201d were affected when describing how \u201cpolice [ransacked] their homes, [handcuffed] children and grandparents, [put] guns to their heads, and [were] verbally (and often physically) abusive\u201d (Alexander 224). By using this story that includes Latinos, those affected by the War on Drugs expand beyond Black communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The War on Drugs reinforced images of criminality and drug abuse in the Black community. Just as Black Americans have become victims reinforced by stereotypes, Hispanics and Latinos also have the same stains on their communities. In American media, Hispanic and Latino people were regularly portrayed in television roles as criminals and drug dealers. The only things covered were crime, immigration, and drugs rather than achievements (36 Dong), similar to how the War on Drugs media portrayed Black Americans. What doesn\u2019t help is that many of the drugs that were being smuggled to the United States came from Latin America (Alexander 7), adding to the image of drug dealers. Latinos and Hispanics within the US also reside in low-income areas alongside Black people. This is shown in a New York statistic used by Alexander in which, \u201c70 percent of the city\u2019s poor black and Latino residents live in high-poverty neighborhoods\u201d (244). They are also framed negatively by the War on Drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

James Forman Jr. reveals that Hispanic and Latino prisoners receive little attention together in the discussion of mass incarceration. However, they make up 20% of American prisoners and one in six Hispanic males are expected to go to prison in their lifetime (Forman 60-61). They are often overlooked by those who support the New Jim Crow analogy. Although Alexander did mention Latinos and Hispanics, whether directly or indirectly, she did not truly address them as she did with the Black community. Although they were not explicitly the target of Jim Crow, \u201cduring the Jim Crow years, Hispanics in many jurisdictions were subject to forms of exclusion, segregation, and disenfranchisement not unlike those inflicted on African Americans\u201d (Forman 60). Some examples I found that were present in Forman\u2019s footnotes were Hernandez v. Texas, (1954), which recognizes Mexican Americans as an independent racial group entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protections, and Mendez v. Westminister Sch. Dist.,(C.D. Cal. 1946), 8 years before Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and struck down segregation of Mexican and Mexican American students in California. Hispanic and Latino people also were affected by poll taxes and literacy tests; therefore, they also overcame voting challenges as well. This narrative doesn’t end at Latinos, Hispanics, and African Americans either, numerous minority groups have faced similar struggles and have been affected by mass incarceration in different ways even if not on the same scale. At the same time, when thinking about the broader implications of Jim Crow, only Black communities seem to come into conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Verdict:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe idea that the Jim Crow analogy leads to a distorted view of mass incarceration and therefore hampers our ability to challenge it effectively.\u201d (Forman 25)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The problem of the so-called color-blind criminal justice system is not something we can turn a blind eye to. The damage it causes is clear and something needs to be done to fix this system that so disproportionately criminalizes and incarcerates minorities. Alexander was not wrong to stress the need for this institution to be reformed and focused on, however, it needs to be reformed as a whole and not just focus on one group or community. If we want to stop more systems and institutions being riddled with racial bias and injustice we need to acknowledge all the pieces. Although \u201cAfrican Americans are incarcerated in numbers grossly disproportionate to their percentage of the overall population, the fact remains that 60% of prisoners are not African American\u201d (Forman 61). If these other groups are not in conversation, they are less likely to see a campaign against it as speaking to and for them. Meaning mass incarceration\u2019s harm will continue. This is why the analogy of the New Jim Crow fails to be the right one for the institution of Mass Incarceration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the system is supposedly colorblind, then we cannot be colorblind to those who are being affected and must speak up for all voices. We cannot be colorblind to those who are being affected and must speak up for all voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow : Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New Press, The, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, https:\/\/ebookcentral-proquest-com.proxy048.nclive.org\/lib\/davidson\/detail.action?docID=5651869.
Althoff, Lukas, and Hugo Reichardt. \u201cJim Crow and Black Economic Progress after Slavery*.\u201d OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 22 July 2024, academic.oup.com\/qje\/article\/139\/4\/2279\/7718111.
Dong, Qingwen. \u201cThe Impact of Television Viewing on Young Adults\u2019 Stereotypes towards Hispanic Americans.\u201d Academia.Edu, 13 Aug. 2016, www.academia.edu\/27755934\/The_impact_of_television_viewing_on_young_adults_stereotypes_towards_Hispanic_Americans.
Forman, James Jr. \u201cRacial Critiques of Mass Incarceration: Beyond the new Jim Crow.\u201d New York University Law Review, vol. 87, no. 1, April 2012, p. 21-69. HeinOnlineThesis Statement
\u201cHernandez v. Texas.\u201d Oyez, www.oyez.org\/cases\/1940-1955\/347us475. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comments:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Note:<\/strong> I did not have my draft posted in time, therefore my drafting group members were not able to comment on time. I asked them afterwards based on availability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alston:<\/strong>
I really like your use of meta commentary, outlining your argument for the reader and adding concessions to your statements. Your use of personal experience adds passion behind the argument, as well as character to your writing. I LOVE how you cite a court case and compare it to a previous court case to make your argument. Great job!
When you first quote James Forman Jr. and Dong add a bit more background such as from which document the quotes from. Also maybe fact check me on this, but for the quotes you only need use the authors last name in the citation the first time you quote the author if you add Alexander states, \u201c\u201d. In your fourth paragraph under \u201cIt\u2019s A Range\u201d, you have a lot of good statistics and quotes but it feels like more quotes than your own ideas. I think you go one to explain the quotes later but I would add more of your own ideas after quotes specifically in that paragraph.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special thanks to both my drafting group and Melz for allowing me to run ideas through them before my essay fully came together. It was extremely beneficial and helped me so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


-Pledge VVB<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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To Be Or Not To Be: Mass Incarceration and The New Jim Crow Introduction: \u201cLife without liberty is like a body without spirit.\u201d \u2013 Kahlil Gibran. The old Jim Crow laws were a set of institutions set in place to limit the rights and freedoms of Black Americans after slavery ended in the states. Racial-based … <\/p>\n

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