The New Jim Crow

I found the idea of the New Jim Crow interesting. I’ve never looked at  incarceration as another form of Jim Crow even though the numbers of those in prison are overwhelmingly African Americans. I however think her ideas are exaggerated. To compare incarceration due to someone committing a crime to slavery and Jim Crow laws that only applied to African Americans seems a bit extreme. I do however agree with her that racial discrimination is still extremely apparent in America today. In the big cities in America, it may be less apparent but once you travel more South, you can see that many people still hold onto the ideas of pre civil war days which is quite sad.

The idea that we’re stuck in a caste system is intriguing especially since America is known for the idea of there being social mobility. I think that people are not indefinately bound to their social class and there is social mobility, however it get’s harder as you go down the social class pyramid and especially harder for those who have been incarcerated to make it up the pyramid again. There should be better ways for those who have been incarcerated to integrate back into society.