The New Jim Crow: The Rebirth of Caste

The New Jim Crow: The Rebirth of Caste

Almost everyone has experienced some kind of injustice at some point in their lives. Sadly, certain groups of people have faced more unfair treatment than others. Throughout the history of the United States, African-Americans have been subjected to oppression.  In fact, analyzing the history of America would be impossible without accounting for the injustices that people of color have experienced throughout the centuries in the United States. Although there have been countless forms of injustice throughout American history, some have been more explicit than others. Michelle Alexander's New Jim Crow explores how racial oppression has been perpetuated through history, concluding that African Americans have always suffered from racial discrimination. In analyzing the history of America and the justice system's treatment of African-Americans, Alexander ultimately comes to one conclusion: mass incarceration is the 21stcentury's method of suppressing people of color. 

Taking a look at American history through the mistreatment of Black people, The New Jim Crow illustrates that oppression is still alive and thriving in our society today. The idea that there are racial castes in modern society was initially denied by Michelle Alexander. As Alexander points out throughout The New Jim Crow, racial oppression has never been eradicated, just changed into mass incarceration in the 21st century. The idea of mass incarceration as the "new Jim Crow" can be identified through Chapter 5, where Michelle Alexander describes how mass incarceration brings back the old stigma and shame of social exclusion and legalized discrimination (Alexander 21). As Alexander notes, Jim Crow constituted this racial stigma; it's now incorporated into mass incarceration by associating crime with black people. In analyzing the increasing black incidence of incarceration, she argues that the severity of an incarcerated society in America is a new way to control and marginalize the Black community. While many argue that Jim Crow and today's racial system have nothing in common, Alexander makes it clear that these two systems are more alike than they seem. 

Through her analysis of how Jim Crow impeded Black success in society, Michelle Alexander demonstrates the evolution of oppression. According to her, slavery resulted in racism that quickly developed into a case new system. After slavery, there was a stronger sense of social class than before, with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom. African-Americans faced social discrimination during that time due to white people's refusal to accept them.  At that time, Black Americans were subjected to increasing social discrimination as white people refused to integrate them into society. In response to the possibility that Black people might rise to the same level as them, as a result of their panic and outrage, they fought and did everything in their power to prevent it (Alexander 30). The discrimination imposed on African-Americans was a good example of limiting social mobility in society because the group was not allowed to move up, instead, we kept them underprivileged. Consequently, the Blacks were at the lowest social and economic level. 

In conclusion, Michelle Alexander does an outstanding job of arguing that racial caste systems are reborn in today's society. In sociology, her text has been used continuously to prove the very theory she posts: that black oppression in America persists no matter how much time has passed. In her text, she critically examines Black people's oppression in the United States that occurred during the Jim Crow period where blacks faced a lot of discrimination. She believes that Blacks still face discrimination even now which she refers to as “The New Jim Crow” as a result of Jim Crow laws that were imposed to discriminate African-Americans. 

Work Cited

Alexander, Michelle. "The new jim crow." Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 9 (2011): 7.