- Citation:
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. The New Press, 2010.
- I think that the thesis falls on page 2 when Alexander says,
“We have not ended racial caste in America; we have simply redesigned it.”
- This kind of sums up the whole idea of the book, that mass incarceration is just America’s new way of burdening Black Americans with laws and regulations that they can’t escape from, and we’re doing it to all of them. Its the same way that it used to be with Jim Crow, but we’ve just made it new and now we think its not bad. But its just as bad as it used to be.
- Michelle starts with using a hook that talks about how there are generations upon generations of black families who haven’t been able to vote. She explains all the reasons for why they can’t, and ends with bringing us to a present day example of someone who can’t vote because they’re on parole. The point of this hook/intro is to show us how these problems are still persisting, today, they haven’t gone away yet.
- She then dives into her thesis about how we haven’t ended racial caste, we’ve just redesigned it.
- I really like how she brings up personal examples at this point about her work experience and how she at first didn’t think that mass incarceration was really a problem, and it took her a while to realize what huge negative impact it has on American society. The text then turns after she makes this realization.
- Then she dives into talking about the War on Drugs and how it was a racial war to target poor black neighborhoods. She brings up strong evidence to present a view that might normally be viewed as a conspiracy theory, but she explains extremely well how there wasn’t a large amount of crack cocaine in poor black neighborhoods until AFTER the war on drugs started. She talks about how the CIA was somehow involved and how it was a genocide conspiracy. The important part about this argument is that the war on drugs exploded incarceration rates, most especially for black people.
- She then dives into the point that the US has the highest incarceration rates than any other country.
- The civil rights activists have been focusing mostly on affirmative action, and this is problematic because criminal justice reform isn’t getting the attention that it needs because its such a huge problem. The problem is so big that the small amount of attention that its getting is not enough.
- She then dives into another point that America essentially has a new undercaste system here caused by the incarceration system. There’s more laws even after you get out, and its basically like you can never escape the system once you’re in. we need to actually do something about this problem. It requires our attention
- She then gives a roadmap for her whole book and a play by play for each chapter
- A. I really enjoyed how Michelle gave a roadmap for her book. I’ve never seen someone give such a clear one for chapters in a book, but i think this is so useful because this book is so much more like research than it is just a fun little novel to read
B. I also liked how Michelle scattered in personal stories from her own life. It made her a person pop, which makes me trust her opinion and what she has to say more. Its not like im getting all my information from a concrete wall, I feel like I know the person whos talking some
C. I also like that she shared real examples from the world, like the intro example. It shows why this problem matters so much
- I don’t love the way that this introduction felt like I was drinking from a firehose. It was lots of information, and it was all super super important stuff that all was important to know, but it was hard to stay concentrated the whole time and feel like i was absorbing it all. I felt like i needed something to break it up, and she did use some examples to do this that were good, but it still felt like a lot sometimes.
Excellent work!