Blog Post #5

   Final Blog Post

    The last few chapters of The New jim crow become less focused on specific topics and more of a look at her claims and evidence from society's view asking, what can be done? How can it be done? How does this all connect? Etc. In these final sections, Alexander links her previous statements and topics together to create a map of how systemic racism in our country is difficult to see at first but is carefully layered into almost every aspect of our society. 

    After reading the entirety of this book I am left mainly disappointed. Disappointed in America for allowing such horrible and racist flaws to be implemented into our system. Disappointed in myself for not understanding the extent to which racism is woven into American society and not doing something about it sooner. Disappointed in the American people for allowing this to go on for so long and denying that systemic racism exists in our country. Nowadays the existence of systemic racism is a highly controversial topic for politicians and citizens alike. The big question always being asked is, is there systemic racism in America? I personally think that yes, systemic racism exists in America and while it may not be obvious to see, it is a prominent part of our system. 

    Alexander supports this claim heavily throughout her book and splits her support into the analysis of racism in three different areas of our legal system. First, come the police and the rules and policies surrounding police. It comes as no surprise to me that the policing system is a racially biased one because of the amount of press police racism that has been getting recently. Over the past year, a huge movement has broken out across America protesting against systemic racism, focusing on police bias and brutality. It has been made clear that racial bias is prominent in policing and not only is it prominent but is legal. Police discretion laws allow police to make arrests based on whatever they see fit including factoring in race, gender, and economic appearance. On top of this, government initiatives such as the War on Drugs have disproportionately placed thousands of police in poor black neighborhoods which have created a huge spike in arrests and incarceration for drug crimes involving black men specifically. Alexander explains that since the War on Drugs began, over 31 million people have been arrested for drug-related crimes. (p.60) The dramatic increase has been supplied by police forces aimed at taking down every small drug possessor in poor black neighborhoods instead of focusing on the source of the drugs or the drug kingpins. But even with all of these arrests, how can the seemingly fair judicial system imprison these people disproportionately?

    Alexander's second topic that she focuses on is the judicial system and what goes on in the courtroom. I had never considered the fact that the courtroom could be anything less than a fair, just place where unfairly arrested individuals could gain their freedom but this isn't the case. She begins this section with a bold claim saying that prosecutors or judges have the most power over any individual in our legal system. As it turns out, this is completely true. Prosecutors must follow no set of rules or educates and can make choices to throw cases out, appeal them, or give varying sentences with no question. This means that if a prosecutor can send a defendant to prison for years, throw out their case, or appeal them to a higher court based on any bias, racism, or influence they may have. Prosecutors also have the ability to filter out any jury members who may interfere with their agenda which has made all white jurys extremely common. A prosecutor simply has to come up with any possible reason, whether it be not liking the jury member's hair, or not liking their name, or any other nonsense reason. All-white juries are important because conviction rates of white and black defendants differ extremely when there is a single black person on the jury. A study by Duke professor Steve Hartsoe shows that when there is an all-white jury, white people were convicted 66% of the time while black people were convicted 81% of the time. With only one black person on the jury, these rates changed dramatically with a 73% conviction rate for whites and only 71% for black defendants.(Hartsoe) With all of this power, the mainly white population of prosecutors in America has been able to support a racist system and discriminate against black individuals causing mass incarceration and imprisonment. Between 1980 and 2000 there was an 1100% increase in the number of people in prison or jail and there are more drug crime-related inmates in prison than there were prisoners for all offenses in 1980.(p.60) These convictions are not equally spread either. A report in 2000 showed that African Americans were nearly six times as likely as a white person is to go to prison for an identical crime. (p.118) These facts scare me but they are only a prerequisite to what comes next. 

    The final stage of systemic racism Alexander discusses is what happens to felons and criminals after they are released from jail. The culmination of all of the factors mentioned before has created a huge prison population that is disproportionately black, but what happens to all of these drug offenders when they are released from jail. As it turns out, this is the worst stage of systemic racism of all. Former felons in America have rights comparable to a freedman in the Jim Crow era. Finding employment is nearly impossible, insurance and mortgages are unaffordable or unattainable, and felons are often even denied the right to vote. These black men who were whisked away from their communities by a biased police force, convicted of crimes unfairly, sentenced for longer times than whites, will finally return to their communities unable to become functioning members of society again. They will be denied employment almost everywhere they look and be unable to provide for their families. Alexander talks about how black neighborhood's unemployment rates rival those in third-world countries. (p.246) The laws regarding the treatment of felons in the world have created a lower caste of people who are completely barred from moving up the socioeconomic ladder and this caste is mainly black. By keeping such a large number of black people either helpless or living in fear, the system can legally discriminate against black people and keep them at the same low social and economic status.

    After reading this whole book, it has become clear to me that systemic racism doesn't only exist, but is rampant in America. While Alexander only focuses on the legal system in this book, systemic racism has been subtly woven into all of American life. I'm extremely glad that I read this book as it opened my eyes to so many incredibly important things going on around me that I had never noticed before. My only wish would be that the knowledge in this book became common knowledge. If only those who deny that these issues exist could read The New Jim Crow. Their minds would most certainly be changed. 

Thanks for reading my blog! 

Works Cited

Hartsoe, Steve. "Study: All-White Jury Pools Convict Black Defendants 16 Percent More Often than             Whites." Duke Today, Duke College, 17 Apr. 2012, today.duke.edu/2012/04/jurystudy. Accessed 18         

Mar. 2021.