Article Critique of the New Jim Crow

Task: Prepare an article critique
Essay Topic: Article Critique
Essay Type: Article Critique
Length: 1 page
Formatting: MLA
Requirements: No specific requirements
Plagiarism
100%
unique text
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This book talks about how mass incarceration has been used to discriminate against the African Americans. The mass incarceration system is designed to punish the blacks more than the whites for drug-related crimes. Thus, more black people end up in the prisons and jails more than the whites. It talks about how people are in denial that the system targets the blacks and yet they know it is the truth. The author is correct because currently there are millions of black people locked in prisons and jails. The citations that the author uses are proof that mass incarceration targets the black and aims to keep them in the “second-class” forever. The author uses good examples to relate the old days of slavery, the Jim Crow era, with the present day of mass incarceration and show how the black people have found a means to prosper under racial oppression and discrimination.From page 173-185, the author links the old days and the present and gives examples as proof. In the old days during the Jim Crow era, the black people were slaves, worked in plantations and served their masters. However, they found a way to prosper by holding shows that portrayed the racism and entertained the white audience. Through their minstrel shows, they became famous, rich, and ventured into the entertainment world.

Today, even though the young black African American men have been taken away by the brutal war on drugs and mass incarceration that has stigmatized them, they have still found a way of achieving success by glorifying their criminalization that sells to the white audience. The media and black celebrities, for example, Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama and Tyra Banks have all failed to acknowledge that mass incarceration has taken away the young black men from the society. It is easy to deny that we know mass incarceration exists and blame the young men for failing for criminal activities. It is easier to condemn them rather than see what leads them to crime,and that is unemployment in the ghettos and lack of decent schools. The author is right to say that we should not blame mass incarceration to justify crime and violence.Once the young black men are out of prisons and jails, they are forever trapped into the new racial caste system – the criminal justice system. They are forever branded as criminals, legally denied employment opportunities, welfare benefits and the right to vote. Many people fail to see that some prisoners make it after leaving being released. They are quick to talk about the few who fail to stay out of trouble and fail to recognize those who have succeeded. The author is right to cite the works of Marion Young to demonstrate how the young black men are forever trapped in a cage, racial discrimination, just like the bird is denied its freedom by being locked in a cage. The racial profiling, biased sentencing policies, and legalized employment discrimination are the wires that strategically strengthen the cage and ensure that the young men who have been released out of prison will forever remain in the second position, in the society. People do not see this as racial oppression and discrimination because they often relate racial oppression with extreme images of the principal locking the door during the Jim Crow era.

5.00 avg. rating (99% score) - 1 vote
Assessment
Overall Impression:
Total disaster. The only thing I got was that the author tried to show that African American criminals are being discriminated. I mean, that's what can be understood easily. Everything else is dim and uncertain, and I can't say anything else.
Grammar
F
Formatting
B
Organization
F
Style
F

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