African Americans Divided but Equal by Law Free Essay Example

The new Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness is a novel that is very inspiring and informative. Written by Michelle Alexander the new Jim Crow gives a detailed examination of the racial bias in America’s criminal justice system and its mass impact within the African American community.

My reaction to this book was a reaction of inspiration and hurt. I’m inspired because when you review the book and see how the justice system has continued to put policies and laws in place to affect the African American justice system it gives you a will to want to do more by becoming more active in the community and also assist with finding more ways that we can continue to fight for justice.

My reaction of hurt also came from this book because as an African American, I became more and more outraged as I read through each chapter. America is a country known as the land of the free but how can a country be known as the land of the free when the land the country was established on is stolen land that was taken away from the first settlers as well as the foundation of the country was built by my slave ancestors in which we still haven’t got our reparations from.

In the novel Michelle alexander begins the first parts of the book through discussion of the slavery era. Alexander argues that because slave owners considered slaves as property instead of people, they were not inclined to give former slaves rights, before or after the United States Civil War.

Alexander then discusses how the Emancipation Proclamation made most famous by Abraham Lincoln was simply a document that was unable to end slavery in the south. This document didn’t totally end slavery because after the union won the civil war, former slaves had to fight for the rights afforded to them by the constitution. From the perspective of slave owners the emancipation proclamation was not received well. M.alexeander discuss how America continued to set African Americans up for failure through systematic oppression through the use of laws and violence as tactics to instill fear into blacks.

One of the ways that they did this was by increasing rates of African Americans in the prison system by labeling them as convicts. By America labeling blacks as criminals, it caused many African Americans to get arrested on non-existent charges. African American prisoners were transitioned back to former slave owners and put back to work on the same plantations before. This made situations worse than before because the slave owners now had the power to work a slave to death without having any real incentive to keep them alive. M. Anderson then discusses how southerners also disenfranchised the African American population. Southern states did this through laws restricting voting rights, poll taxes and literacy test that targeted the poor, and illiterate primarily.

Violence was again a strategy to scare African Americans from voting as groups such as the Ku Klux Klan demonstrating lynching of blacks were extremely common. The hate crimes exhibited on African Americans were ignored by authorities. Blacks were also forced to attend separate schools, pray at separate churches, sit at the back of the bus, as well as drink from different water fountains. Policies stated above were even upheld in court by the Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson which declared that African Americans were separate but equal under the law. Segregation continued to be in effect even after the case of Brown v. The board of education as well.

As a result of segregation black folks began to migrate to areas that society consider urban areas or low income. Police targeted the areas in which black folks migrated to. In the book, Alexander discuss a 2002 study conducted at the University of Washington in Seattle, researchers found that despite evidence showing that complaints made by citizens were drug activity indoors and in private residencies, Officers in Seattle focused on open-air drug markets where predominantly black dealers were arrested at a much higher rate than whites.

This was shocking finds in the study because in Seattle at this time drug offenders and dealers were predominantly white. 2002 researchers concluded that there was no logical reason for these resources through law enforcement to be used in this manner. Anderson stated that the reason for officer’s disproportionate focus on black crimes is a direct result of the war on drug. Beginning in 1971 the war on drugs was led by President Nixon. President stated that drugs were public enemy number one despite the fact that drug related crime in the late 1960s and early 1970s was fairly low. Alexander discussed in her book about president Nixon using the war on drugs as tactic to attract the working class whites.

During this time working class white were very much in uproar over the progress that the civil rights movement had made. The war on drugs administration accomplished its goal of becoming more attractable to working class whites through media influence. Through media influence a drug hysteria over crack cocaine and drug use primarily by African Americans and lower income areas was created. This tactic helped assist with implemented the theory on Americans that drugs were only found in the African American and lower income communities. In the present state of America opioid addiction is one of the primary focuses of drugs conversation, in the discussion of other drugs, many Americans tend to continue to believe that other drugs are only found within African American communities. These theories have had continued support from America as well.

Each year our federal government spends millions of dollars per year on grants that give great incen

tives to police stations across the united states to focus on drug related crime. Continued studies through the years have proved that drugs wasn’t a problem until the war on drugs was declared. Due to these factors that were put in place it led to incarceration increasing mostly for minorities of color. Although incarceration were going America did not think that was not enough. As time moved on to the 90s the three strikes law as passed under the Bill Clinton administration, was implemented as a strategy to make repeat offenders not commit the same crimes again, but how can an offender not repeat the same crime if they have not been provided rehabilitation while in prison as well as when you get out of prison attempting to get a quality job is tough because most employers do not seek employment for felons.

Throughout the New Jim Crow book, Michelle Alexander provides facts and clear evidence that supports that blacks have assisted with building America as well as blacks have been targeted through different laws and policies put in place. My belief is that in order for us to reach any progress America must first be willing to look at what has occurred in history to blacks but that’s the main issue America is unwilling to view the history of what has occurred to blacks because most of the people in power with in a America don’t view blacks and other minorities as equal.