Category: Blog 10/22

“We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

This quote means the racial caste hasn’t been eliminated but still exists somehow, which we don’t realize. It’s alarming when I found out about the jail system and the aftermath of how they are treated. As Alexander states, “They are legally denied the ability to obtain employment, housing, and public benefits—much as African Americans were once forced into a segregated, second-class citizenship in the Jim Crow era.” In other words, the belief of how African Americans are were treated still exists and hasn’t been forgotten about. I believe this is true. Jails are built to take away their freedom. Besides helping people, they treat them as animals and not a normal human being.

“We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”

In my last blog post on race relations in America I spoke on the use of decoys by the United States to put up a forefront of change, while never actually legitimately coming up with a lasting solution. Both this quote as well as many points from the article furthered this belief. First, the point that the oppression of black people in America has changed but stayed the same is one example. The way that Jim Crow was removed, but the same effects can be seen today from the U.S. Justice system just goes to prove how policy makers love to look like they’ve made change (i.e. doing out with Jim Crow Laws), but truly don’t make change and continually systemically oppress specific racial groups (i.e. the U.S. Justice System). The quote epitomizes both of these ideas, saying an American caste system has not been done away with, but presented differently. I think comparing the supposed class system in the U.S. to that of a caste system is quite ingenious. The caste system is distinct for having essentially 0% class permeability. This shows that due to racial barriers the U.S. has begun to reflect these values, as the ability of many black people to rise through classes is very limited due to racial discrimination.

The quote, “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” means that although we as a society believe that we have put tremendous effort into reforms to get rid of racism and discrimination in America, all that we have done is change it until it ends up being the same thing we started with. For example, the introduction mentions how African Americans were not allowed to vote earlier due to slavery first, and then literacy tests. Now that these rules have been thrown out of society, we have still found a way to make it harder for this minority group to vote. African American people make up most of the incarcerated population in America, resulting in them not being able to vote just like their ancestors. The stereotypes put against these men and women never ended, the rules to oppress them just became sneakier and sneakier. This concept can be seen in many aspects of life other than voting. It is still harder for African Americans to get jobs and be respected in society since negative stereotypes towards them still exist.

Obviously, when the author claims racism to be present in America, it isn’t through the form of blatant segregation laws like Jim Crow or voting restrictions for blacks. However, the level of racism lies underneath the skin of a nation with a stained history.

The big elephant in the room is mass incarceration, which is highly targeted towards blacks. This is commonly known by many of us, and even the author makes a jab at it: “Jim Crow and slavery were
caste systems. So is our current system of mass incarceration.” She refers to the process as a “caste system”. But how could it be a caste system if mass incarceration doesn’t contribute to issues in society as a whole?

Except it does. Implicit bias exists everywhere, and it is very rare to find occasions where it doesn’t exist. That matter is made only worse by being a felon. As a felon, you immediately lose out on certain privileges according to law, and your record becomes critiqued more often by employers. That is true tenfold if you are a black felon. See, mass incarceration is like a virus, a virulent one that steadily seeps through the cracks. It’s difficult to say where its effects end, but it is for certain that its effects are present. And it is, unfortunately, one that will not see an end soon, as politics and a lack of public discussion on race and class mobility deem it to be. The largest problem if anything is us not acknowledging the problem as a collective; we frown down on our American history and we push racism to the side today as if we don’t want to think about the past. But if we just took an ample amount of time to just listen to each other, then maybe we’d all understand.

🙂

As Michelle Alexander puts it “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” Throughout every new generation in America there are new tactics being developed to achieve the same goals shared by predecessors of the past such as the folks that were alive during the Jim Crow Laws. In today’s day and age the modern version of this is the criminal justice system, where if your name is in the papers within the system you basically have your rights stripped just as the black folks did during their lives through Jim Crow into what’s considered a “second-class citizenship.” A system that creates more harm than fixes what has been done is a system that I would consider a failure just as the prison system has been. All it does is surround you with people who committed all types of felonious acts where you are then labeled by your crime and consequently face the treatment of other whether it be good or bad. All this creates is a hub of criminal information where an inmate now has a larger grasp on how to commit and get away with crimes so when they get released and are legally denied the ability to obtain employment, housing, and public benefits they resort back to the life that once allowed for them to obtain their basic needs which is a crime filled life. I believe the only way to reform this situation is to give incarcerated people a purpose in life when they’re locked up so when they get out they can pursue a path that will do justice within their communities through re-integrating them into society. For example, if the majority of Americans believe the appropriate way to treat another human that is currently addicted to crack is to lock that person up, then when they get released on parole / probation they’re going to want to find every opportunity possible to get another fix and ultimately repeat the same mistakes that landed them in an institution in the first place as they weren’t ready to quit or give up their past lives. This is why the criminal justice system needs reformation, without instilling purpose in criminals and giving them the tools to integrate back into society they are just going to continue making the same choices they did before and continue to follow the path to “second-class citizenship” just like the experience of those during the time of the Jim Crow Laws.

This quote is saying that the racial caste has not been demolished but they have just found a way to reinvent it. They have reinvented it in a sudden manner to make it seem like the racial caste has ended. They set up a legal system in which they make it harder for black people to have certain rights. The author told stories of how black people were unable to vote for many different reasons. Jarvious Cotton’s grandparents were unable to vote due to being a slave, being killed for attempting to vote, intimidation by the KKK, poll taxes and literacy test, and being labeled as a felon. This was from his great-great-grand father down to his generation. For years they had come up with new ways to keep black people from receiving certain rights and being able to do certain things white people are able to freely do. She talks about how the criminal justice system is corrupt. The racial bias in the system and mass incarceration causes black people to make up the majority of the population in prison. After prisoners are freed, “they are legally denied the ability to obtain employment, housing, and public benefits—much as African Americans were once forced into a segregated, second-class citizenship in the Jim Crow era.” The system today is just another way of segregating, keeping a racial caste, and controlling black people. Therefore, the racial caste never ended it had just been redesigned.

After reading the Introduction to The New Jim Crow, I interpret the quote “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.” as the United States never ended Jim Crow, they just changed how it was applied in society. Jim Crow was meant to make sure that African Americans never reached the same stature as the white elites. The author explains how the stature of African Americans in the U.S has gone through little change. “Cotton’s great-great-grandfather could not vote as a slave. His great-grandfather was beaten to death by the Ku Klux Klan for attempting to vote. His grandfather was prevented from voting by Klan intimidation. His father was barred from voting by poll taxes and literacy tests. Today, Jarvious Cotton cannot vote because he, like many black men in the United States, has been labeled a felon and is currently on parole.” No matter which period in U.S history Alexander looked at, the treatment of Cotton and his ancestors, along with many African Americans today has gone unchanged. A free black person in the south after the Civil war was pushed down in society just as much as a free black person coming out of jail. The government’s use of mass incarceration is an attempt, a successful one at that, to make sure that African Americans stay down in society. As she explains it,” The term mass incarceration refers not only to the criminal justice system but also to the larger web of laws, rules, policies, and customs that control those labeled criminals both in and out of prison. Once released, former prisoners enter a hidden underworld of legalized discrimination and permanent social exclusion”. It is essentially legalized racism and it is hidden to the public’s eye. Whenever someone sees a criminal they say, oh he deserved to be jailed, which allows the government to take advantage and criminalize many innocent African American peoples, taking away many of their rights. “As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow.” This is some research that Alexander provides us and it shows how much has really changed for the African American community over the years.

She uses this as an introductory statement of the purpose of her book. In her own words “What this book is intended to do—the only thing it is intended to do—is to stimulate a much-needed conversation about the role of the criminal justice system in creating and perpetuating racial hierarchy in the United States.” The quote aligns with her purpose for writing the book as it makes the reader more interested in her proposal of how Jim Crow still exists today and the reader learns that the criminal justice system is to blame. “Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems. So is our current system of mass incarceration.”