Essay Four (Final): The New Jim Crow
Support, refute, or complicate Michelle Alexander's thesis that the current justice and prison system are perpetuating the old Jim Crow into a new Jim Crow. Use Toulmin or Refutation model.
Because this is your Final, it is a bit longer than your previous typed papers. While they are four pages (1,000 words), this essay is five pages (closer to 1,200 words).
Be sure to have a Works Cited page with no fewer than three sources and be sure one of the sources is from the El Camino College database.
Essay Requirements:
One. Students will express critical viewpoints and develop original thesis-driven arguments in response to social, political, and philosophical issues and/or to works of literature and literary theory. This argumentative essay will be well organized, demonstrate an ability to support a claim using analysis and elements of argumentation, and integrate primary and secondary sources.
Two. The paper should use at least three sources and not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them. Three. This paper will be approximately 5-6 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. The Works Cited page does NOT count toward length requirement.
Four. Within your argument, address issues of bias, credibility, and relevance.
Five. Analyze and employ logical structural methods such as inductive and deductive reasoning, cause and effect, logos, ethos, and pathos, and demonstrate understanding of formal and informal fallacies in language and thought.
Six. You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
Seven. You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
Eight. You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Sample Concession Thesis Statements That Address the Analogy Between Jim Crow 1.0 and Jim Crow 2.0:
One. Support of Michelle Alexander:
While the New Jim Crow comparison to the Old is not a perfect analogy, there are compelling similarities evidenced by ______________, _______________, _______________, and _______________________.
Two. Refutation of Michelle Alexander:
While I concede there are some disturbing parallels between Jim Crow 1.0 and what Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow, the comparison ultimately collapses when we examine _____________, ______________, _______________, and _______________________.
Three. Example of Thesis That Refutes Michelle Alexander
While Alexander makes compelling points about the loss of human rights and the link between degradation of justice in the face of the profit motives behind the disturbing expansion of the incarceration system in the Age of the Drug War, her narrative is an incomplete, highly selective propaganda piece that fails to address the link between drug crime and theft (Proposition 47 and the spike in Los Angeles crime), the demands of many African Americans for more robust police intervention to protect their communities, and the exaggerated analogy between Jim Crow and the alleged “New Jim Crow.”
Four. Example of Thesis That Supports Michelle Alexander
While Alexander’s analogy between Jim Crow 1.0 and the War on Drugs as a form of Jim Crow 2.0 has many flaws, there are enough compelling parallels to make her thesis persuasive, especially when we focus on the profit motive behind incarceration, the racial disparities in prison sentencing, and the loss of constitutional rights as a result of the futile Drug War.
Five. Thesis That Refutes Michelle Alexander
While Alexander makes some compelling points about the need for more drug treatment and making incarceration less profit-driven, her overall narrative is largely a fiction that does a great disservice to American society by demonizing all politicians and cops as money-hungry racists, by ignoring the crimes resulting from drug use, by ignoring how black communities suffer when the police back off from those communities, and by ignoring the role of economic class, not race, as a predictor of crimes that must result in imprisonment if we are to protect law-abiding citizens.
Six. Thesis That Supports Michelle Alexander
While Alexander's argument would be better served to take a more nuanced approach in her portrayal of the police, her overall New Jim Crow narrative is persuasive in light of racial arrest patterns, race-based loss of civil liberties, and the military-like expansion of police powers.
Review: What McMahon Would Do If He Were Writing This Essay
For paragraph 1, I'd write an introduction that does four things:
Defines Jim Crow
Summarizes Alexander's major points and how they add up to support her main argument
Introduce the question: How convincing is her argument?
Answer the question with a thesis that includes 4 mapping components that will corrospond to the supporting evidence paragraphs
Paragraphs 2-5 would be the supporting evidence paragraphs
Paragraphs 6-7 would be counterarguments in which I'd anticipate my opponents' disagreement with Alexander and show why those opponents are wrong and/or misguided.
Paragraph 8, my conclusion, would sum up my supporting evidence and restate my thesis in a dramatic fashion.
Each paragraph would be approx. 150 words for 1,200-word total.
How to Set Up a Counterargument in Your Rebuttal Section (The Templates)
Some of my critics will dismiss my claim that . . . but they are in error when we look closely at . . .
Some readers will 0bject to my argument that . . . However, their disagreement is misguided when we consider that . . .
Some opponents will be hostile to my claim that . . . However, their hostility is unfounded when we examine . . .
Some Alexander critics argue that . . . However, their remarks collapse under the weight of various fallacies, which include
Common Rebuttal Points to Michelle Alexander
- "She is encouraging the victim role instead of personal responsibility."
- "Racism is over. Obama is President!"
- "Do the crime; pay the price."
- "NJC is an exaggerated and offensive analogy to slavery."
- James Forman has a very complex critique. This is the best critique I've seen.
Study Questions, 140-177
One. What is the cruel stigma that whites have had against blacks since the beginning of slavery as described by Frederick Douglass?
On page 140, at the beginning of Chapter 4, The Cruel Hand, we see that whites have had these attitudes toward blacks:
Whites don’t know blacks.
Whites are ignorant of their character. And this ignorance leads whites to fear blacks and behave in irrational ways that put blacks in danger as we see in the tragic case reported in Slate.
Whites estimate blacks to be without character and purpose.
Whites hold blacks in scorn and contempt.
Today, the author asserts, a black criminal released from prison suffers the same stigma.
Lynch mobs are gone but police harassment is alive and well with The War on Drugs.
The author writes, “In ‘colorblind’ America, criminals are the new whipping boys.”
Out of prison, a felon can’t get housing and without housing a felon can lose his or her children (146).
Two. How could the following quotation, taken from Glenn Loury, be posed as a quiz question: “Are we willing to cast ourselves as a society that creates crimogenic conditions for some of its members, and then acts-out rituals of punishment against them as if engaged in some awful form of human sacrifice?”
Alexander’s entire book is an indictment against this ritual. This "ritual" of "human sacrifice" reminds me of the evil evident in the famous Ursula Le Guin short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." A brief thematic analysis of this short story would make a great introduction to your essay.
Three. What is the paradox of urban young black men labeled as criminals as described on page 172?
They turn to each other for identity and support just like the oppressed during the first Jim Crow."We're not crazy."
Four. How do pages 172 and 175 summarize Alexander’s entire New Jim Crow narrative?
She explains how racial control was achieved through mass incarceration.
Five. Does Alexander concede that victims of the New Jim Crow have responsibility and how does this help her argument?
See page 176 in which she states that to deny their free will would be to deny an essential part of their humanity. I emphasize this because Alexander’s opponents will argue she is crying victim for those she defends. This could be part of your counterargument section.
Study Questions, 178-221
One. Why are black children often without a father?
See page 180. A black child today is less likely to be raised by both parents than in times of slavery because most black fathers are in jail.
Two. What is disturbing about mass incarceration?
We read on page 180 that there are more black adults in prison today than there were black people enslaved in 1850, fifteen years before the Civil War, when slavery was flourishing. Further, with the felon label, young black men today are just as likely to suffer discrimination in employment, housing, public benefits, and jury service as black men in the Jim Crow era (181).
Three. On pages 183 and 184, we read that racism has evolved from an explicit form to an implicit one. Explain.
The implicit one is more durable than its previous incarnations.
The implicit version works as thus:
War on Drugs is the vehicle for rounding up extraordinary numbers of young black men.
The first stage is called the roundup.
The police are motivated by drug forfeiture laws and federal grant programs (185).
Police can stop anyone if they get “consent.”
The second phase is conviction, the period of formal control. Once arrested, defendants are denied legal representation and pressured to plead guilty, which results of being stripped of many citizen rights.
Once convicted, drug offenders spend more time under the criminal justice system’s formal control, in prison or on parole, more than anyplace in the world. This control may last a lifetime.
The final stage is called invisible punishment, which describes sanctions imposed on individuals once they step outside the prison gates (186). They become members of the undercaste, an enormous population that is mostly black and brown.
Four. What makes the New Jim Crow such a dangerous form of oppression?
We read on pages 188 and 189 that whole communities are imprisoned and that in Illinois, 90% of all drug-related incarcerations are black people and 55% of the total black male population. These are members of the new racial undercaste.
Five. What are the parallels between Jim Crow, the original version, and Mass Incarceration (Jim Crow 2.0)?
Both versions are born of white elites exploiting poor white resentments and to deflect anger on a more vulnerable people, people of color, rather than the people doing the exploiting, the white elites (191).
Conservative politicians in the 1970s and 1980s sought political power by claiming to “be tough on crime,” code for being tough against blacks and making white people “feel safe.” We call such politicians “racial opportunists.”
Both versions engage in legalized discrimination. In the first Jim Crow, blacks suffered job and housing discrimination; now branded felons suffer the same fate.
Both versions result in political disenfranchisement with the stripping away of voter rights and jury duty. Now it’s done in race-neutral language so the discrimination is more insidious and hard to fight.
Both versions instill racial segregation, the first one explicitly, the second one insidiously by isolating entire communities of black men in prison.
Both versions instill the idea of race, an artificial idea, into American consciousness. Before slavery, skin color and race were not on people’s radar (197).
Both versions emphasized racial symbolism. In the New Jim Crow, “black men choose to be criminals. It’s their nature.” As a result, this country has created a racial stigma even though whites and blacks use drugs in equal rates (197).
Six. What are the limits of making the analogy between the first Jim Crow and Jim Crow 2.0?
Jim Crow was explicitly about race; Jim Crow 2.0 is not; the latter is about coded language such as “criminals” (which equal blacks).
The Drug War is not against blacks but it targets blacks with race-neutral language. And it could be further argued that the Drug War targets the poor regardless of race.
KKK has been replaced by the state prison system.
Seven. What purpose is served by comparing drunk driving deaths to drug-related deaths on page 206?
The War on Drugs was an elite-based program, generated by conservative, rich politicians who wanted to use race to bring Democrat voters into their Republican party.
Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) was grass roots, starting at the bottom.
Drunk drivers are responsible for 22,000 death annually.
All alcohol-related deaths number 100,000 a year.
In contrast, drug-related deaths are 21,000 annually, about 20% of the deaths produced by alcohol.
So alcohol kills 500% more people than drugs. But there is no War on Alcohol.
Drunk drivers are predominantly white male. White males comprise 78% of all drunk driving arrests. They are charged with misdemeanors, receive fines, license suspension, and community service.
Also, this behavior, which kills far more people than drugs, is addressed with treatment and counseling.
In contrast, people charged with drug offenses are people of color and they are charged with felonies and sentenced to prison as part of a mass incarceration program (207).
Eight. How has the law changed with marijuana use changed over the years?
We read on page 207 that in the early 1900s marijuana was perceived as a drug used by blacks and Mexican Americans, leading to strict penalties under the Boggs Act.
In the 1960s when marijuana was associated with white middle class use and college kids, reforms set in, resulting in the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, which differentiated marijuana from other narcotics and reduced penalties.
Nine. On page 217, the author explains how we are a sick society, choosing the sick path when presented with a “Fork in the Road.” Explain.
We could give the poor and vulnerable opportunities in education and employment, but instead we punish them while giving them no options.
We choose what kind of nation we are.
Now the populace is indifferent as the 1% elite take more and more of the wealth while the middle class erodes. Young people of all colors aren’t buying cars because they have college debt, no good jobs, and no place to go. They’re hanging out at Starbucks with their smartphones.
People of color in the inner cities have it even worse and yet they’re targeted in the War on Drugs. For example, on page 229 we read that black men without an education suffer 24% unemployment, a condition that would not be tolerated if levels were that high in the white community.
During the economic boom of the 1990s, young black men suffered an increase in unemployment, 42% overall and 65% for high school dropouts (229).
Study Questions, 221-261
One. Why would there be huge resistance to reforming the New Jim Crow and Mass Incarceration?
We read on page 230 that if we got back to the incarceration rates of the 1970s, before the War on Drugs, we’d have release 4 out of 5 prisoners. This would reduce prison jobs and would be met with all-out war from the 700,000 prison guards, administrators, service workers and other prison personnel.
In a report by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Statistics in 2006, the U.S. spent $185 billion for police protection, detention, judicial, and legal activities in 2003. This is a tripling of expenses since 1982.
The justice system employed almost 2.4 million people in 2003. If 4 out of 5 prisoners were released, far more than a million prison employees would lose their jobs.
Private sector also has an investment in prison growth and the mass incarceration of helpless and vulnerable people of color. For example, former vice president Dick Cheney has invested millions in private prisons. His bank account depends on the incarceration of more and more black men (230).
On page 231, the author gives a sample of “prison profiteers” who look for new ways to increase the prison business, with the targets always being the same: poor black men, the people this country has abandoned.
Consider this: On page 237 we read that 75% of all incarceration has no impact on crime, that if between 7 and 8 prisoners out of 10 were released, there’d be no change in crime; however, this 75% generates $200 billion annually. It’s a money-making device.
The moral bankruptcy of the New Jim Crow is that this multi-billion-dollar economy has been built on the backs of poor black men whom America doesn’t give a damn about. There’s an “it ain’t me” mentality that is morally loathsome and detestable.
Two. What fuels the New Jim Crow in addition to greed? Is it racial hatred?
On page 242, the author argues racial hatred is not the culprit but something far worse: indifference. “My narrow, insular world is not effected so why should I give a damn?” A moral country would be like the group, All of Us or None (255). This group tirelessly advocates the “least among us,” which is the central message of the greatest religions and philosophies. Yet America has turned toward the other direction.
Review of Alexander's Major Claims and Arguments
One. The NJC was based on race-neutral language to exert racist control and to make a rich prison empire on the backs of poor black men.
Two. Prisons don't reduce crime. They increase it.
Three. NJC was created by elite whites to appease poor whites.
Four. NJC is a reaction to the Civil Rights Movement merging with the Poor People's Movement (threatening to take more pie from the white elite who needed to break the alliance).
Six. War on Drugs threw away the Fourth Amendment for people of color.
Seven. Poor people don't get legal representation.
Eight. U.S. legal system accomodates white crimes (alcohol, powder cocaine, marijuana) but prosectutes to the full extent black crimes.
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