The NEW JIM CROW

Okay this week was a mind blower of media intake for me. I uploaded some more books so yes I definitely spent a lot more time overall on my phone and listening. This week I was encouraged to read the book the New Jim Crow and wow, there are so many things that the book really just puts into perspective. It is a little dive into history of politics and how they have harmed the black or any marginalized community since the original Jim Crow laws ended. These ARE THINGS STILL GOING ON TODAY. The biggest thing the author talks about is the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration in this country currently. I'll put some current cited stats below to put it into perspective.

• In 1972 there were 200,000 incarcerated people here in the United States.                                                 Recorded in 2019 we have reached 2.2 million incarcerated humans here in the U.S. 

• And a disproportionate amount of them are women and men of color. 

• So it is common belief that most of these incarcerations are due to the war on drugs that was announced in the 70's. This was basically the announcement that the government would not be tolerant anymore (aka three strike bill from Clinton too), lots of money went into policing of neighborhoods that were seen as 'more-likely' to have drugs. They had this idea that they would catch leaders of drug rings and destroy the 'drug problem' but all that has happened is more minors are thrown into prison and small drug offenses becoming extensive sentences.

• 75% of people in state prison for drug conviction are people of color although blacks and whites see and use drugs at roughly the same rate. In NYS, 94% of those imprisoned for a drug offense are people of color.

• People of color tried are more likely to be put into prison for the small crimes in comparison to their white counterpart who committed the same crime.

• Over the past two decades, state spending on prisons grew six times the spending of higher education

• The problem with this is; According to a FBI Bureau of investigation study the white community dealt and bought illegal drugs at a the same if not a higher rate than Black Americans. 

• Today we have 5% of the world's population in the United States, while we hold 25% of the world's incarcerated people. Specifically people of color.

A quote from the author says, "No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities," writes Alexander. "The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid."

I want to go on with the stats (I would love to cover children tried as adults and how the first step act was nothing but a slap in the face) but what I’ll do is just recommend the book The New Jim Crow and also the book Just Mercy. I hope this puts into perspective that BLM is not just against police brutality but a whole system that seems to have accidentally ‘declared a war against them’. 

Let's not forget that those put away for small sentences are never allowed to vote again, this is slowly changing in states. So I hope anyone who reads this went out and voted for those who couldn’t.

Works Cited

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow (Revised). New Press, 2012.

Coates, Ta-Nehisi. “Mapping the New Jim Crow.” The Atlantic, The Atlantic, 17 Oct. 2014, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/10/mapping-the-new-jim-crow/381617/.

“Criminal Justice Reform | Equal Justice Initiative.” Equal Justice Initiative, 2019, eji.org/criminal-justice-reform/.

Hetey, Rebecca C., and Jennifer L. Eberhardt. “The Numbers Don’t Speak for Themselves: Racial Disparities and the Persistence of Inequality in the Criminal Justice System.” Current Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 27, no. 3, 3 May 2018, pp. 183–187, 10.1177/0963721418763931.

Stevenson, Bryan. Just Mercy : Adapted for Young Adults : A True Story of the Fight for Justice. New York, Delacorte Press, 2018.

US Census Bureau Creating office name. “US Census Bureau Site Name Main Page.” Www.Census.Gov, www.census.gov/econ/overview/go3000.html. Accessed 6 Nov. 2020.

‌