Introduction: Main ideas of The New Jim Crow

Main Ideas of The New Jim Crow
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Main Ideas of The New Jim Crow
Thesis Statement:

This paper discusses some of the advanced ideas in the book The New Jim Crow by Alexander Michelle. The New Jim Crow is an account of the re-introduction of the caste system in the US. This system has led to millions of people of color incarcerated and reduced to second-class citizens and denied the rights they have fought for in the Civil Rights Movements. The following paragraphs detail the ideas that are highlighted in the book.

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Racism and Racial Castes
One of the central arguments of the book The New Jim Crow is that racial castes have not been ended in America, but it has just been redesigned. Using the term “Caste,” the writer, Alexander Michelle, apart from highlighting people’s caste groupings, argues that some races are closed into an inferior space by customs and laws. Alexander stresses that racism and race are closely related through the use of the racial caste language that refers to both class and skin color. According to him, race is a violent and oppressive hierarchy that deems some individuals to be less human or less equal than others. Alexander explains that as a result of this ideology, President Thomas Jefferson stated in the Declaration of Independence that “All men are created equally.” Even during a time when slavery was seen to be legal since White Americans regarded African Americans to be people of low caste and were discriminated against (Alexander, 2011).

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Stereotypes
The book also discusses how stereotypes are advanced in different ways in the American community. Alexander demonstrates in the book that mass incarceration was done on a racial basis and targeted mainly African Americans as they were racially profiled of being criminals. On the other side, the book details how Latinos were perceived to be drug traffickers, and every Hispanic individual was culturally stereotyped on such grounds. Also, the book details how Latinos and Africans were pushed into crime due to their meager earnings and poverty (Alexander, 2011). For instance, non-criminals were suspected to be criminals just because they were black, and poor African Americans were forced into crime because of poverty (Tonry, 2010).

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Progress Illusion
There is also the issue of progress illusion that is widely discussed by the author, Mrs. Alexander Michelle. In the book, Alexander deliberates against the view held that significant progress has been seen as far as racial equality is concerned in the Jim Crow era. Particularly, she focuses on the significance of the Obama presidency; wherein many people saw evidence that America has gotten into a non-racist era where people of color are no longer affected by race as a barrier to success. But to this, Alexander states that the progress is just an illusion, and there is no consistency between Obama’s presidency and the reduction of racism. In fact, during and after Obama’s presidency, we have witnessed more discriminatory instances (Hoerl, 2012).

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Justice vs. La...