Jeffrey Crawford POLS 3460 Literature Review 6 28 June 2013 The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander Has

our nation freed itself from the stigma of being racist? According to Michelle Alexander, we have not. She titles her article after the old Jim Crow laws AfricanAmericans were subject to. She says the fairy tale assumption that the fact Obama is in the Oval Office is proof that the land of the free has made its promise of equality, is one of the greatest lies ever told (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Alexander says the people are in a era of colorblindness, and there is a fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we have moved beyond race (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Many people would probably disagree with her, until they read some of the statistics on AfricanAmerican discrimination in the prison system.

Michelle Alexander believes we as a country are still bound in a racial society. The idea that there is hope for you if you're poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste does not exist according to the author (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). She gives some statistics as to why she believes we have not moved past this social dilemma. There are more African-Americans under correctional control today, in prison or jail, than were enslaved in 1850 (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Another statistic is as of 2004, more African-American men were disenfranchised (due to felonies) than in 1870, the year before the 15th Amendment was ratified (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). The explanation for this of course is

crime rates. The public is told that the reason so many black and brown men are behind bars is because they just happen to be the bad guys (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com).

Imprisonment rates have consistently risen, and the vast majority of the increase is due to the War on Drugs (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Drug offenses account for two-thirds of the increase in the federal inmate population, and more than half of the increase in the state prison population (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). This War is exclusively waged in poor communities of color, even though there are consistent studies showing that people of all colors use and sell illegal drugs (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Some studies even show that white youth are more likely to engage in illegal drug dealing than black youths (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). One statistic shows that white youth have about three times the number of drug-related visits to the emergency room as their African-American citizens (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). It also seems apparent that racial inequality is still existent when Reagan declared the War on Drugs in 1982 when drug crime was on the decline (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). It was part of a successful Republican party strategy of using crimes issues and welfare to attract poor and working class voters (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com).

It becomes especially apparent when you have a President's Chief of Staff saying the whole problem is really the blacks (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Not only is that comment appalling to hear from someone you'd expect to be a role model, you

then have Democrats and Republicans using it to their advantage (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). The issue of crime now becomes a competition of who can get the harshest legislation passed (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). Research shows that much of black progress is a myth, with nearly a quarter living below the poverty line (Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com). When we look from the outside in, laying the facts on the table, we see a similar racial caste as was present in the early 1900's. This is not a progression in societies ability to adapt and overcome, and instead is an evolutionary way to keep the oppressed where they are, and the privileged even more enlightened.

Works Cited: 1. Alexander, Michelle. "The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to

a Permanent American Undercaste." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 08 Mar. 2010. Web. 26 June 2013. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michelle-alexander/thenew-jim-crow-how-the_b_490386.html.