Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” (chapter 1), defends the thought of the racial caste system still being present today. Alexander questions the thought of African Americans having a better life now, than back when slavery was at its peak. The following thought’s of mine will show that Alexander is right in her thinking. She believes that slavery started in the colonial period when black people were brought to America as “cheap labor”, and was put at the bottom of the racial caste system. This then started a new racial system called Jim Crow, and eventually was a cycle that never stopped of racial systems. Slavery is one of the worst of worst historical events that has ever existed. The African Americans were taken advantage of, and they could do nothing about it.
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The fact that some African Americans have experienced great success in recent years does not mean that something akin to a racial caste system no longer exists” (p. 21). Let’s just consider the Civil Rights Movement and what that did to African Americans. Just as slavery was abolished, and the African Americans thought they were free, the whites began to make the blacks less superior again. Alexander believes that the end of Jim Crow, simply made a new path for a new system to takes its place. The history of racial caste in the United States would end with the Civil War if the idea of race and racial difference had died when slavery was put to rest” (p.26). This idea shows that white supremacy was overpowering everything and that the African race was depraved. This brings out the thought of the Declaration of Independence where Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal”. If all men were created equal shouldn’t African Americans be treated equally? Many people will argue that racism is not a powerful force in society today. Alexander brings up a good point by saying that with the acts of the Civil rights movement and the
The fact that some African Americans have experienced great success in recent years does not mean that something akin to a racial caste system no longer exists” (p. 21). Let’s just consider the Civil Rights Movement and what that did to African Americans. Just as slavery was abolished, and the African Americans thought they were free, the whites began to make the blacks less superior again. Alexander believes that the end of Jim Crow, simply made a new path for a new system to takes its place. The history of racial caste in the United States would end with the Civil War if the idea of race and racial difference had died when slavery was put to rest” (p.26). This idea shows that white supremacy was overpowering everything and that the African race was depraved. This brings out the thought of the Declaration of Independence where Thomas Jefferson wrote “all men are created equal”. If all men were created equal shouldn’t African Americans be treated equally? Many people will argue that racism is not a powerful force in society today. Alexander brings up a good point by saying that with the acts of the Civil rights movement and the