Response Paper to Michelle Alexanders The New Jim Crow...

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness was written by Michelle Alexander to expose the truth of racial injustice in the system of mass incarceration through the comparison of the racial control during the Jim Crow Era. She reveals how race plays an important role in the American Justice System. Alexander argues about the racial bias, particularly towards African-Americans, immanent in the war on drugs as a result of their lack of political power and how the Supreme Court tolerates this injustice. Statistics show that African Americans commit only fifteen percent of drug offenses, yet they comprise up to 90% of incarcerations for drug offenses in communities throughout the country. Besides that, although the†¦show more content†¦Although some victims of this type of abuse took legal action and attested that the war on drugs is racially unjust, their claims were rejected and disregarded by the court. â€Å"The Supreme Court has made it virtually im possible to challenge racial bias in the criminal justice system under the Fourteenth Amendment, and it has barred litigation of such claims under federal civil rights laws as well.† (Alexander 106) For instance in the McCleskey vs. Kemp case, the real matter in question was whether the court would permit racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. The sentence given to McCleskey was the Court’s reply, â€Å"racial bias would be tolerated––virtually to any degree––as long as no one admitted it.† (Alexander 107) So in reality, the Supreme Court has sanctioned racial bias in the criminal justice system and policing instead of opting for rules prohibiting it. The facts speak for themselves, people of color are the enemies and targets in the war on drugs. They also tell us that fighting back is useless due to the racial bias that is inherent in the criminal justice system. This might come as a surprise to the majority that belie ve discrimination is no longer in existence, considering that it is a black man living in the White House. Ever since Barack Obama pledged to serve as the forty-fourth presidentShow MoreRelatedSummary Of The New Jim Crow1742 Words   |  7 PagesWorks Cited Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: New Press, 2010. 261 Pages â€Å"The New Jim Crow† Summary â€Å"The New Jim Crow† was written by Michelle Alexander based off of her experience working for the ACLU of Oakland in which she saw racial bias in the justice system that constituted people of color second-class citizens (Alexander 3); which is why the comparison had been made to the Jim Crow laws that existed in the nineteenth centuryRead MoreThe New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration of the Racial Undercaste3337 Words   |  14 Pagesform of mass incarceration, and what kinds of effects mass incarceration has on a community. In this paper, I will briefly examine a range of issues surrounding the mass incarceration of black and Latino males, the development of a racial undercaste because of rising incarceration rates, women and children’s involvement and roles they attain in the era of mass incarceration, and the economic importance that the prison system has due to its development. Michelle Alexander, in her book, The New Jim Crow: