Jim Crow

The quote “we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it” resonated with me in that it shows how racism is still present in our country and that people found loopholes to racially categorize certain groups of people. In the introduction, Alexander describes how in each generation, there were changes. However, people “adapted” to the laws and found different ways to keep racial groups in a hierarchy. Just how Jim Crow was a law, in name, to protect Africans and African Americans and failed to do so, the released criminals in present day America are denied “the right to vote, excluded from juries, and relegated to a racially segregated and subordinated existence”. Alexander specifically addresses the issue of crack. The American media publicizes the black community and the uprising issue of crack, calling people “crack whores”, “crack babies”, and other nasty phrases. This allowed for the black community to be a target of racism and discrimination. The media is powerful in that it makes it clear for people to target the specified group and encourages people of racial views already  to come to light and act upon their racial beliefs. These information in the introduction allow the readers to foreshadow the more detailed cases of racial categorization and discrimination later on in the book.