More like No duh!
While appalling, what it is shown in The New Jim Crow is hardly surprising. The United States is a country that decided Segregation was not okay only 60 years ago in 1954 and implemented the thought into society much later. Obviously, the war is not over.
I agree wholeheartedly with Michelle Alexander’s thought on mass incarceration in the United States being the new Jim Crow. I’d even argue that it is worse. There are more black men behind bars or under the watchful eye of the criminal Justice system than there were enslaved in 1850 and those numbers didn’t inflate like that after the start of the war on drugs by accident.
For example, Crenshaw High School in California in a middle class black community lost its accreditation in 2006. A black person can play by all the rules and follow the Horatio Alger script to success: study hard get good grades and once they get their diploma, it doesn’t mean a single thing. Black people can look at things like this happen in society for so long before they can ask what is the rational thing to do? Should I go to school and not get anything out of it or can I get in on this drug dealing business the CIA is pushing to urban citizens?
In a society that praises monetary value is it really a surprise that African-Americans try to attain personal respect the American dream by being a successful drug dealer? This is an economical decision, not a wicked and evil decision. These people aren’t selling drugs because they’re evil, they’re selling drugs so they can survive. Instead of helping offer African Americans other opportunities, they deem them immoral and evil and throw them in jail. Why is that? It’s because the government doesn’t care what happens to the African-Americans. They’d rather have them in jail and never have them vote again. The less African Americans that are capable of voting, the less resistance every year White supremacy has to deal with.
