The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander - Essay Example

? The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness looks at the problems faced by the Afro-American people living in the United States of America. These people have been termed as the ‘invisible people’ and the problems that alienate them form the society has been termed as an ‘invisible birdcage’. The United States declared an open war against the Blacks living there, wrapped in the disguise of a war against drugs. Huge amount of arms and ammunitions were used and many were jailed. In this book Alexander asks that, how, even after the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Bill, had the US government allowed such a brutal and merciless killing of the Blacks, for whom the government had earlier announced protection, thus involving sociological concepts such as racial and ethnic inequalities. The policy of mass incarceration was enacted following a blatant historical presumption that black males who were poor were dangerous and they must be kept under control using conflicts and wars under the guise of drug control. This book places emphasis on the way in which African Americans face lesser opportunities and certain civil rights when they are freed from prison. The inmates return to a world which is actually unsupportive to their wants and needs and there is a complete suppression of the basic human rights, and so few survive and others return to where they were freed from, the prison. Very aptly quoted in the preface of the book were these lines by the author: “This book is not for everyone.  I have a specific audience in mind—people, who care deeply about racial justice but who, for any number of reasons, do not yet appreciate the magnitude of the crisis faced by communities of color as a result of mass incarceration.” (Alexander, Preface). Via the above lines she wishes to draw the attention of the American people and make them realize the enormity of the crisis. In the past, to establish an alliance and for purposes related to self interest the plantation owners used to maintain good relations with the poor whites and gave them certain facilities, while the blacks were duly sidelined. This has been termed in history as social bribing. Thus from this we can define race as certain common cultural characteristics that make individuals distinct from others while racism is a term which is defined by a person who believes in prejudice based on race, i.e. skin color tone etc. and believes in inferiority and superiority based on those. Racism has been present in America for a long time, and in this book Alexander puts forward the fact that how preconceived notions about blacks in America were wrong. She also points out how, based on those pre conceived notions and stereotypical thinking; the government had been depriving the Afro-American community of certain basic rights (Giddens, Dunier, Applebaum and Carr, 2010, pp 16-17). Empirical results show that African Americans were the majority of the inmates in Federal prison. Most of them were caught for minor offences, such as drug possession, rather than sales, which are comparatively a more grave matter of concern. The inmates have no such violent traits, under which grounds they had been imprisoned (Alexander, 2010, pp 131). Some facts which scream out the blatant truth can show what really had been happening in the US all this while in the name of reducing criminals. After so many years after the Civil War, studies show that in comparison to 1850, there is more number of African-Americans in jail today. Also in 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised as per the laws, describing them as felons and hence robbing them of their basic fundamental rights. Many black fathers had been put in jail rendering the childhood of many young blacks devoid of a father. Similar to the Jim Crow era, a majority of African-American men have been tagged felons, and debarred form enjoying basic rights, such as right to vote, being judged by a jury, or even proper employment benefits, and had been permanently reduced to second class citizens. Studies show that crime rates have lowered in the last few decades, but mass incarceration rates have increased over time (Alexander, 2010, pp 14, 13, 138, 191, 219). A Supreme Court order in 1985 made it practically impossible for any African American to make claims of racial biased ness in the court until and unless documentary proof was available. Police had been given authority to do practically anything without permission (Alexander, 2010, pp 86). The criminal justice reform movement is not effective as it takes meager efforts to a reform and also presuming very incorrectly that the law was interested in practicing equal justice. “Any movement to end mass incarceration must deal with mass incarceration as a racial caste system, not as a system of crime control. We need an effective system of crime prevention and control in our communities, but that is not what the current system is. This system is better designed to create crime, and a perpetual class of people labeled criminals, rather than to eliminate crime or reduce the number of criminals.” (Alexander, 171) The New Jim Crow compares the current mass incarcerations to the original Jim Crow legal system. Either of the two systems the prejudice and discrimination against the African Americans and points out the issues of unwanted workers being put behind jail. The author argues that even though the new American president is black, and more and more black people are passing out from elite colleges and universities, all this is a myth. African-Americans are in no way better off than their ancestors were. About a fourth of the community live under the poverty line, which is the same as that reported in 1968. The unemployment rates in the US for the blacks are equal to the world unemployment rate for the Third World countries. She claims that the so called ‘colorblind’ society that creates the so called colorblind policies there are not really so colorblind. Assessment In this book, the fact that moved me the most was the way the author represented the way in which the government had framed the Afro-Americans and used them for political gains. From the sociological point of view this book has held out aspects of global inequality, ethnicity and race, as well as how education and politics have taken their own roles in a problem that seems to be never ending. If one delves deep into the history of America’s treatment of the blacks then we would find that it is filled with dark and horrifying events and it compels us ponder about the sufferings which they have been subjected to. The Blacks had been brought into the country as slaves in the latter half of the 19th century. The blacks in the plantations were treated very badly and they were subjected to a lot of sufferings. Inhumane working conditions coupled with brutal treatment were the main features things observed. The inequality between them and the whites had existed from then on. Time has moved on but the attitude towards them has not changed. Dominance of the Americans against the blacks has persisted. If the cotton plantations became a medium in the past then at present under the veil of laws to protect the country is being used to eliminate them. A glance into the opportunities accessed by them would reveal that they are barred from most of them. Apart from that from economic point of view they are much weaker compared. Traditionally from poor countries, the blacks had to fight it out to gain their rights, but being from other countries, the general feeling among the whites had been not so friendly, and they treated the Blacks as outsiders. Over time the whites had developed this feeling of prejudice and discrimination towards the Blacks from the reputation they seem to have constructed in their minds about them. The age old theories that the plantation owners had created of the Blacks being highly violent and disruptive have carried on, made them insecure to share the same place with them, and it has been used over and over by the political circle in an unethical manner. We can find a lot of scholarly works highlighting the sufferings of the blacks and sociologists have urged to view them in a different way. Appeals have been made to mankind to develop a different attitude but all these have not changed the attitude of the Americans. Political supremacy or political battles have been one of the major causes of conflict all over the world. Similarly in the US, to gain power or win elections, the Republican Party, very cleverly initiated its Drug Wars, and later on the Democrats showed a bloody side of their governance. From the point of view of society, the common people of America, the majority, had been blind folded and led to believe that that the blacks were the ones creating all the problem. The politicians have in fact relied on the age old prejudice against the blacks and as used it as a means to instill hard feelings against them. I personally believe that the false reputation that had been created before, for ages, had been very wrongly used by President Reagan for usurping votes from the whites. Winning is necessary, but not at the cost of human lives. This essential principle of fare politics was completely ignored by America. This attitude of them is surprising in the sense that in the modern world America has taken up the role of bringing peace in this world. In this process they have often interfered in the affairs of other countries under the pretext of social justice. On the contrary all such views were never followed when brutal actions were being taken against the blacks. The scores of Blacks who had been jailed were termed felons and denied basic human rights. Human rights have become an essential element in the 21st century. We find that America’s presidents from time to time have emphasized its importance and its implementation. There has been open condemnation by the American government for those countries where such rights were denied on grounds of caste and creed. They considered themselves the harbingers of human rights. Yet the treatment meted out to the blacks speaks of a different view. Behind the veil of law the US government had actually ill treated and mismanaged a whole race of people, scarring them for life. The American government completely overlooked the serious situation of drugs and this was evident from the fact that blacks were arrested for possessing the drugs while the Whites who were caught selling were hardly penalized. The education system and the labor laws which run parallel in the US, function on the instructions of the government laws, duly passed on that same kind of ill treatment and denial of service as much as they liked for over many years. So the fate of the Blacks or the Africans Americans had been decided by the US government and such blasphemous methods have over the years pushed a whole race of people against the wall. Criticisms of such policies which completely cornered the blacks were heard from all parts of the world but America simply turned a deaf ear to it. The US government always justified their reactions and there was hardly any protest from the locals. It is now after, so many years; the awakening is slowly happening, with writers such as Michelle Alexander and others revealing such horrific tales of torture. I find the terms ‘the invisible people’ very apt, it appeals to all Americans to open their blindfolds and see the real world, and the metaphor ‘invisible birdcage’ duly reproduces the struggle that the African Americans faced. If we want the fate of the African Americans to change then an essential requisite for it is the awakening of the masses. The book brings out the humane side in us and makes us think deeply. References Alexander, Michelle. (2010), The new Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness, The New Press Giddens, Anthony, Dunier, Mitchell, Applebaum, Richard and Deborah Carr, (2010), Essentials of Sociology. 3rd Edition.WW. Norton. New York. Read More