Similar to the documentary, 13th, The New Jim Crow states that media often displays people of colour or black people as dangerous criminals (Alexander,28). Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness Michelle Alexander. So denying people the vote isn’t preventative, but punitive. We are one of the few countries in the world with this prohibition. Because, as she sifts through American history, you grasp the larger implications of her argument: The United States did not just criminalize a select group of black people. Alexander is a visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary and an opinion columnist for the New York Times. Use a mostly minority prison workforce as slave labor for industry and manufacturing. ... the 13th Amendment formally abolished slavery in the United States. If I was living at that time, I would have never tolerated anything like that.’ And the truth is, we are living at this time. Note: This meetup will reference both the book, "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" by Michelle Alexander (Free PDF here from Vanderbilt University: PDF link) and the film, The 13th, currently playing on Netflix. They make a compelling case that much of this – while presented as a war on crime or drugs – was intentionally focused on communities of color. Written by Ms. DuVernay and Spencer Averick, “13TH” picks up Ms. Alexander’s baton and sprints through the history of American race and incarceration with seamless economy. One popular textbook, “The American System of Criminal Justice,” states that the 13th Amendment “had little impact on criminal justice.” And a booklet on the Constitution, “Know Your Rights,” available through the Justice Department, reads: “The 13th Amendment protects every person in America — all races and creeds, citizens and noncitizens, children and adults — from the bondage of slavery. Both The New Jim Crow and 13th explain how slavery developed from existing socioeconomic conditions and needs. Mass incarceration is the gateway to the New Jim Crow, Alexander’s concept for understanding how black people in particular lack any real rights of citizenship. When “The New Jim Crow” came out, a decade ago, you said that you wrote it for “the person I was ten years ago.” Take me back to those times … Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. I would recommend them both. Now, with the United States having 25 percent of the world’s prisoners, a disproportionate number of whom are black, mass incarceration has become “metaphorically, the new Jim Crow.”. He pops up in a section on the rise off mass incarceration during the 1980s that’s tied to crack cocaine and the racial gap in arrests and sentencing. Like “The Supreme Court has now closed the courthouse doors to claims of racial bias at every stage of the criminal justice process, from stops and searches to plea bargaining and sentencing. ( Log Out /  The 13th Amendment, ratified ... century the country experienced its first “prison boom,” legal scholar Michelle Alexander writes in her book The New Jim Crow. Underfund public defenders so people of color are seldom given adequate representation. Every so often, the animation underscores an interviewee’s point, as in one sequence in which the word “freedom” morphs into flying birds and then the Stars and Stripes and then a slave ship. Origins of Jim Crow - the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. With few exceptions, the movie’s voices — including most of its several dozen interviewees — speak in concert. Buy New Jim Crow (10th Anniversary Edition), The: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness 10th Anniversary ed. The movie hinges on the 13th Amendment, as the title indicates, in ways that may be surprising, though less so for those familiar with Michelle Alexander’s 2010 best seller, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Ratified in 1865, the amendment states in full: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” As Ms. Alexander underscores, slavery was abolished for everyone except criminals. The New Jim Crow was initially published with a modest first printing and reasonable expectations for a hard-hitting book on a tough topic. People poured out of the building; many Currently the 'Prison/Industrial Complex' is just a new version of the same old problem. (Light sentences for white cocaine users and stiff sentences for black crack users.). It sounds exhausting, but it’s electrifying. Powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming, Ava DuVernay’s documentary “13TH” will get your blood boiling and tear ducts leaking. Sun 28 May 2017 Sunday 28 May 2017 12:30 PM - 7:30 PM . Chattel slavery, convict leasing, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, broken windows, predictive policing and the surveillance state. In its first 30 minutes, the documentary touches on chattel slavery; D. W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation”; Emmett Till; the civil rights movement; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Richard M. Nixon; and Ronald Reagan’s declaration of the war on drugs. The 2016 documentary film “13th” by director Ava DuVernay (available on Netflix) won the … In short, they are important contributions to understanding systemic racism today. Make decreasing the number of people incarcerated a national goal. And we are tolerating it.”. The New Jim Crow And Ava Duvernay 's Documentary 13th 1465 Words6 Pages As a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, blatant racism is no longer viewed as acceptable social behavior. It criminalized black people as a whole, a process that, in addition to destroying untold lives, effectively transferred the guilt for slavery from the people who perpetuated it to the very people who suffered through it. Angela Davis, scholar and activist, in “13TH.”, Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House, who speaks in “13TH.”. As the amendment reads, “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”  Unfortunately, in a white dominated society, this loophole has allowed discrimination to move from institutional slavery to institutional incarceration. immediately reminded of the harsh realities of the New Jim Crow. It landed on bestseller lists, was discussed in the media endlessly, made Alexander an activist-scholar hero, and led to many subsequent handbooks and publications on how to bring its prescriptions for a better criminal justice system to fruition. A sixty year old white man and father of a thirteen year old black daughter reflecting on his latent racism and white privilege. Published January 19, 2017 The new Jim Crow James Mulholland A sixty year old white man and father of a thirteen year old black daughter reflecting on his latent racism and white privilege. The New Jim Crow' Michelle Alexander* The subject that I intend to explore today is one that most Americans seem content to ignore. Ms. DuVernay is working within a familiar documentary idiom that weaves original, handsomely shot talking-head interviews with well-researched, occasionally surprising and gravely disturbing archival material. marijuana and opioids) becomes epidemic in white populations, legalize the use or decrease the punishments, including offering drug treatment instead of incarceration. “He’s got his hand in his waistband,” we hear Mr. Zimmerman say shortly before fatally shooting Mr. Martin. Alexander appeared in the 2016 documentary 13th directed by Ava DuVernay. The New Jim Crow. Treat drug abuse as an important public health issue like alcohol use and abuse. The New Jim Crow is a birdcage, a set of structural arrangements that subjugates a race politically, socially, and economically. When types of drug use (i.e. The New Jim Crow, the 13th Amendment and the "War on Drugs" Image from meetup.com. Praised by Harvard Law professor Lani Guinier as "brave and bold," this book directly challenges the notion that the election of Barack Obama signals a new era of colorblindness. Eliminate mandatory sentencing and allow judges more latitude. 13th . The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, says: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall … Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. The documentary does a fine job of summarizing the book and the book offers the documentation and detail for those wanting to verify the claims of the documentary. Over the past two weeks, I’ve both watched the Netflix documentary “13th” and read the book it was based on – “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander. The videos and features above are from PBS documentaries and productions by American Experience, The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow, Slavery By Another Name, and … “Jump, Jim Crow” Thomas Dartmouth Rice, a white man, was born in New York City in … The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness is a book by Michelle Alexander, a civil rights litigator and legal scholar. Dismantling Jim Crow laws was a major goal for Martin Luther King Jr., pictured above marching in Washington in 1963, and for the civil rights movement. ( Log Out /  As a guest expert interviewee, Alexander described the evolution of racial disparity in the United States of America through its evolution from slavery, the Jim Crow laws, the War on Drugs, to mass incarceration. Permanently marginalize millions of people of color as second class citizens AND blame them for their plight. Mass incarceration is the gateway to the New Jim Crow, Alexander’s concept for understanding how black people in particular lack any real rights of citizenship. Even though drug use and distribution are MORE widespread in white populations than in populations of people of color, target the enforcement of drug laws at people of color. The book discusses race-related issues specific to African-American males and mass incarcerationin the United States, but Alexander noted that the discrimination faced by African-American males is prevalent among other minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged populations. All these sources, in turn, have been shaped into discrete sections that are introduced with music and animation. Mr. Norquist puts the onus for this disparity on politicians (calling out United States Representative Charles B. Rangel, another interviewee), stating that it had nothing to do with — as he puts it — “mean white people.”, The documentary might have benefited from more articulate jaggedly discordant voices than Mr. Norquist’s to enrich the dialogue and as a reminder of the other views on race, history and the criminal justice system, including those in the mainstream. We have 33% more than the next closest nation – Russia. But the system’s namesake isn’t actually southern. ... new president Rutherford B. Hayes … Calls for law and order – in the 1870s, 1960s and today – are seldom about law and order. “And he’s a black male.” When this documentary reaches its culmination, which features graphic videos of one after another black man being shot by police, Ms. DuVernay’s rigorously controlled deconstruction of crime, punishment and race in the United States has become a piercing, keening cry. - [Voiceover] So in the last video we started talking about the system of Jim Crow segregation, which was a legal form of segregation, and denial of voting rights or disenfranchisement, which characterized the American south from approximately 1877 to 1954. A black man was on his knees in the gutter, hands cuffed behind his back, as several police officers stood around him talking, joking, and ignoring his human existence. The New Jim Crow is such a book. Roots of racial disparities are seen through a new lens in this film that explores the origins of housing segregation in the Minneapolis area. On April 17, 2020, Netflix released the film for free on YouTube. As a guest expert interviewee, Alexander described the evolution of racial disparity in the United States of America through its evolution from slavery, the Jim Crow laws, the War on Drugs, to mass incarceration. The film was released on October 7, 2016, on Netflix. Create stiff, mandatory sentencing laws that encourage people of color to plead guilty to lesser charges, even when innocent. In response, The New Jim Crow is an effort to stimulate popular dialogue about the criminal justice system as a tool that creates and perpetuates racial hierarchy in the United States (p. 16). Build and fill prisons – often in white, rural communities – to create a large prison industry owned and run by white people. How could people have gone to a lynching and participated in that? While neither the documentary nor the book offer remedies, I have these immediate suggestions to make: As with most issues of justice, by eliminating the racial bias within our criminal justice system, we also create a more equitable and just society for all. However, the absence of blatant individual racism cannot be equated to the absence of structural racial discrimination. Deborah Peterson Small, an activist interviewed in “13TH,” a documentary by Ava DuVernay. Therefore books like Michelle Alexander's THE NEW JIM CROW and Ava DuVernay's 13TH should have focused on the incarceration of black women just as intensely as they did the incarceration of black men. 7. Some (like a galvanizing Angela Davis) are more effective and persuasive than others; at least one — Newt Gingrich, speaking startling truth to power — is a jaw-dropper. Alexander appeared in the 2016 documentary 13th directed by Ava DuVernay. Enculturate the image of people of color as criminal and deserving of greater attention and punishment so that even people of color perpetuate the myth. Speed is one reason — you’re racing through history witness by witness, ghastly statistic by statistic — but you’re also charged up by how the movie’s voices rise and converge. They both begin with the premise that the 13th Amendment, while ending slavery,  left open a loophole which has ultimately led to a criminal justice system that systematically relegates large numbers of people of color to second class citizenship and marginalization. White people are seldom portrayed as drug dealers, even though whites (6.6%) are more likely than people of color (5%) to actually deal drugs. Denying people the right to vote after they’ve paid their “debt” to society is unjust and, within the present system, inordinately denies the vote to people of color. Ms. DuVernay isn’t the only American director to take on race and the prison industrial complex (Eugene Jarecki’s “The House I Live In” charts adjacent terrain), but hers is a powerful cinematic call to conscience, partly because of how she lays bare the soul of our country. She continues in her job as a civil rights lawyer, but in due course realises that the statement was actually true. If you knew that committing a crime, and getting caught and convicted of a felony, you would lose your right to vote, would it make a difference? Maintain a police force largely dominated by white, poorly educated men with both intentional and latent racial bias. Ms. DuVernay forcefully and sorrowfully challenges that confident assertion, tracing the history of systems of racial control from the years after the abolition of slavery all the way to George Zimmerman’s speaking to a police dispatcher about the 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. It landed on bestseller lists, was discussed in the media endlessly, made Alexander an activist-scholar hero, and led to many subsequent handbooks and publications on how to bring its prescriptions for a … The movie hinges on the 13th Amendment, as the title indicates, in ways that may be surprising, though less so for those familiar with Michelle Alexander’s 2010 best seller, “ … Now, ten-plus printings later, the long-awaited paperback version of the book Lani Guinier calls "brave and bold," and Pulitzer Prize–winner David Levering Lewis calls "stunning," will at last be available. In 1828, a white entertainer in New York by the name of Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice danced and sang mocking an African-American slave, the act was called “Jump Jim Crow”. The New Jim Crow is that rare first book that has received rave reviews and won many awards and prizes; it and Alexander have been featured in countless national radio and television media outlets. 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