In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander effectively argues that the racial caste system was never abolished, instead, it was reconstructed in disguise of colorblindness to legally discriminate African Americans. Alexander also discusses how the War on Drugs, the election of Barack Obama and various other occasions have been used to implement this caste system, resulting in the incarceration of thousands of African Americans. She defines the racial caste system as the new Jim Crow, legally segregating blacks without use of racial terms and, therefore, eliminates the accusation of racial bias in our prison system. This source will be used in this paper as evidence to introduce the history of slavery into the emergence of the new caste system. The book will also be used to strengthen my argument on the existence of racial bias today and how it is shown through deceitful tactics used by our law enforcement officers, sheriffs and judges.
Elizabeth Brown’s Race and Crime: Geographies of Injustice examines how today’s prison systems are exceedingly racialized, to the point where many African American males have accepted imprisonment to be unavoidable. Brown also explains how the emergence of this new form of racial control was rooted from the execution of the Thirteenth Amendment and that slavery not merely exists, but is now constitutonally and legally accredited. She proceeds to note many similarities between slavery and our current prison system and how the system claims to rehabilitate African Americans. This source will be used in this paper as evidence to strengthen my argument that the Thirteenth Amendment, although abolished slavery, excluded the case in which it is a punishment of a crime, in order to reconstitute slavery. I will also be using the graphs and charts to establish my credibility that African Americans men are, indeed, making up most of the population in prison, as compared to white men.
The author of the journal article, Jaron Browne, explores the violation of basic human rights of African Americans who have become prison laborers, from doing textile work to operating slaughterhouses and farms, without the protection of minimum wage or overtime laws. Browne argues that, despite good intent, the creation of the Thirteenth Amendment, the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, only paved the way for the current mass incarceration of African Americans. This form of legal discrimination has been established in order to legally control people of color as many private companies and federal prisons have taken advantage of this opportunity to make a profit. This source will be used in this paper as evidence to link the return of slavery today to the Thirteenth Amendment and the Atlantic slave trade as a whole. The journal article will also be used to introduce the origin of the United States prison system and how it has evolved to what it is today.
This journal article effectively challenges the American capitalistic system, as well as argues that this system exploits black and poor people to slavery through racism and discrimination. The co-authors, Kaidi Kasirika and Maharibi Muntu, explore the various parallels between a slave system and a prison system, such as sexual castration, indeterminate sentences and disciplinary actions. This source provides a first-hand account of the inhumane treatment and strict restrictions that black prisoners have to endure while imprisoned to establish the credibility of my argument that slavery has been recreated into our current prison system to legally control African Americans. Also, the similarities between slavery and the current prison system that were presented in this article will be referenced in my argument.
German Lopez, through his Vox news article, examines (subconscious) racial bias in law enforcement and controversial police shootings. Lopez claims that blacks are much more likely to be shot than whites, despite being unarmed, ultimately resulting in the increased number of deaths of African Americans. He uses this as evidence in his article to argue that police brutality reveals the hidden racist ideologies of our criminal justice system, as well as of our country as a whole. This source will be used to introduce the topic of police brutality towards African Americans in my paper. Lopez also incorporates many research studies in his article that I will be able to reference in my own paper, as well as various graphs and charts that compliment my argument that African Americans, although only make up a small percentage of the population, continue to fill up federal prisons.
Philip Morgan in “Origins of American Slavery” traces the basis of the history of slavery in both the Old and New World Settlement. The article examines the development of slavery, as well as some of the reasons behind its prevalence. This source will be used in this paper primarily for its historical context. In addition, the source will also be used as a reference to the history of slavery such as how the degrading practice of slavery arose through the influence of other countries, how slavery has shaped American history and how it will continue to do so.