Thursday, February 23, 2017

BHM Day 22: The New Jim Crow



So I first heard about The New Jim Crow through Matt McGorry’s Twitter. On OITNB he plays the cop with a heart of gold, who impregnates a prisoner. He also appears on How to Get Away with Murder as the douchey guy with a heart of gold. Off screen, Matt is very politically minded and is a big supporter of women and minorities. He went from awkwardly cute, to my down ass sexual white chocolate. It’s a long nickname, so if anyone has a better suggestion, I’m open to any suggestions.

Anyway, so the book… I rented it and read it over a couple weeks. I’m a fast reader, but this book was a slow read for me. I should’ve known that when I saw the references to actual trials AND footnotes, this was going to be intense AF. Michelle Alexander does a great job of showing how the US ended up with this massive issue of mass incarceration on its hands. Alexander likens mass incarceration to a caste like system of oppression. This book was fascinating for me not only because it lacked pictures (kidding) but because so many points from it were relevant to current events.

Many think that just because Blacks can vote and drink at the water fountain of his/her choosing that all is equal. Alexander points to different points in the achievement for Black’s rights and we almost always see a backlash from the establishment ( usually White men of privilege) as they scrambled to maintain some sort of dominance. Slaves were freed, but then laws were created that made it easy for former slaves to be arrested and forced to do what was, essentially slave labour. Blacks could vote (Yay!!) but poll taxes and literacy tests help to suppress Black voters. (boo) According to Alexander, mass incarceration that we are in today is a response to the ending of the Jim Crow laws. Your history teacher wasn’t lying when he/she said that history loves to repeat itself.

This post isn’t meant to be a long ass book report; there’s so much to this book that you just need to experience on your own. I felt 1000x smarter after reading it and refer back to often when debating racist people online. The New Jim Crow should be required reading. If you are Black, it tells you just how skewed the system is. It’s one thing to grow up hearing “the whole system is fucked up” but it’s another so see the hard data and evidence. White people can benefit from the book just by being made more aware of their privilege. It’s not done in a way to shame or be Anti- White, but presents a compelling argument before the readers as if to say “Here are the facts, if this doesn’t sit right with you, do something”

Since this book gave me so many speaking points and made me think so much, I am shining the BHM spotlight on it. Hopefully some of you might read it and maybe we can discuss it. It’d be like Oprah’s book club, but I’m not wealthy and bread is just ok to me…

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