Third Reading

March 30, 2018
Alexander Begins to Appeal to Emotion

Hello everyone!

I am back again for my third blog to date. I can absolutely say that I am thoroughly enjoying this book. Although it is quite dense with information and takes me a while to read, I am finding it to be a good read.

As I predicted, Alexander's style of writing changed a bit. Now, the chapters are largely focused on appealing to the reader's emotions. She does this by including real world stories of individuals affected by America's criminal justice system.

Alexander's book is organized in chapters, as are many books, duh. But within these chapters are mini-chapters. I think Alexander organized her book this way due to how the dense with information it is. Each little sub section of the chapters are focused on one topic, which she will discuss extensively. Then she will move on to a different topic, but each topic will connect. This set up makes it easily readable. It helps to break the book up into chunks, this way, the reader can process the information. And for this reason, the book has been much easier to comprehend.

In the beginning of the book, Alexander focused mainly on the use of logos. She cited articles, statistics, court cases, professional individuals, historical events and more. But as the book has progressed, she has shifted to appealing to pathos. She does this in order to show her reader's how serious of a situation we are in and how it affects those individuals and their families who are involved in the criminal justice system. She discusses the idea that once individuals are charged, they are permanently entered into this under caste. To highlight this, she provides stories of individuals who have been negatively affected by this system.

            Alexander states, "...the forty-two-year-old African-American man who applied for public housing for himself and his three children, who were living with him at the time. He was denied because of an earlier drug possession charge for which he had pleaded guilty and served thirty days in jail"(Alexander, 146).  This example makes one feel sympathy for this small family who was denied housing because of a minor drug charge. Critics may say, this is one extreme case. But this is far from the truth. Families and individuals on a regular basis are denied housing due to these charges. And she proves this with statistics and logic. Alexander reported, "More than 650,000 people are released from prison each year, and for many, finding a new homes appears next to impossible, not just in the short term, but for the rest of their lives"(Alexander, 148). And finding homes is so difficult for ex-offenders because, "Public housing officials are free to reject applications simply on the basis of arrests, regardless of whether they result in convictions or fines"(Alexander, 146).  Ex-offenders are legally denied housing due to their criminal activity, which as we know is not always justified and highly discriminatory. And 650,000 people experience this difficulty each year.

Another powerful example of pathos stated, "...a forty-one-year-old African American mother remarked after being denied housing because of a single arrest four years prior to her application, "I'm trying to do the right thing; I deserve a chance. Even if I was the worst criminal, I deserve a chance. Everybody deserves a chance"(Alexander, 148).  Yet again, Alexander adds this example to prove just how impactful this under caste has been on people of color.  And as stated before, it is a large portion of the population that is affected by these daily struggles.

I think her inclusion of the appeal to pathos has made her argument even more persuasive. But this does not mean she has abandoned the use of logos. She uses an effective combination of both logos and pathos to support her argument, which has not only made it more readable but also more influential. And this combination of pathos and logos has simultaneously strengthened her ethos. She is already very well respected, being a professor of law at Ohio State University and a former director of the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union). But her style of writing is impressive. She sounds not only professional, but highly knowledgeable. This trio of appeals makes her work believable and highly significant within our society today. That is why this book has been coined "The Bible of a social movement". 

Thanks for reading! I am really enjoying this whole blog thing :)

Second Reading

March 25, 2018
How America has Successfully Institutionalized a System of Mass Incarceration

Welcome back!

After my second reading, I can say that the book is really coming together. As Alexander elaborates on our nation's racial caste system, I have only become more absorbed in her writing and looking forward to each opportunity I get to sit down and read.

In this blog post, I want to highlight the relevancy of this book in our society. These ideas presented by Alexander are not simply restrained to text. They have real world occurrences, however, they are often not covered by the media....but more on that later!

In this second chapter, "The Lockdown", Alexander described how our justice system has transformed into a system that wrongly allows for the incarceration of thousands of people, largely due to the War on Drugs. The federal government has implemented rulings and policies that allows law enforcement to have control over the population. "Stop-and-Frisk" is one rule that allows for law enforcement to stop anyone if they have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. However, the "Stop-and-Frisk" rule has had little to no success in cutting down on crime.

In fact, an article from the Washington Post reported that,  "...there's no real correlation between the use of stop-and-frisk and New York's reduction in crime"(Bump). As of today, stop-and-frisk has proven to not have any impact on crime reduction.  And Alexander states that, "...95% of stops yield no illegal drugs"(Alexander, 71).  So there you have it. Not only do these confrontations rarely yield any illegal substances, but they also have not impacted reduction in crime. These stop-and-frisks are unsuccessful and simply allow for law enforcement to utilize profiling.

Profiling, the use of personal characteristics to make generalizations about a person, is frequently used when police are searching for possible criminals. As Alexander states, "The profile can include traveling with luggage, traveling without luggage, driving an expensive car, driving a car that needs repairs, driving with out-of state license plates, driving a rental car, driving with “mismatched occupants,” acting too calm, acting too nervous....(Alexander, 70)". The list goes on. But profiling can be especially detrimental to people of color, who are targeted for possible criminal activity. In July of 2009, Henry Louis Gates Jr, an African American man, was arrested outside his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts for breaking into his own home. Gates has been a Harvard professor for nearly two decades and when attempting to enter his own home, a police officer asked him to step out and provide identification. Gates responded, "Why, because I am a black man in America?"(Goodnough). This event supports the idea of racial profiling. It proves that despite being highly educated and professional, he was assumed to be involved in criminal activity based on the color of his skin. It happens, and Gates is only one of many individuals who are affected by it.

Let's get back to the book. So, we know that there was a dramatic increase in drug charges during this time period. But law enforcement was not always so eager to look for drugs. Once the federal government implemented  a program that incentivized drug arrests with grants, drug arrests rose dramatically. Even today, this is true. Police departments only make revenue off of drug crimes. The more drug arrests the department claims, the stronger their chances are for receiving grants from the federal government. As one may expect, this has caused police departments to be more focused on  smaller scale crimes and abandon serious crimes. The Huffington Post reported that, Stephen Downing stepped down as Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police due to this very reason. He is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, who is calling for an end to the War on Drugs. According to Downing, "...this problem is on the rise all over the country. Last year, police in New York City arrested around 50,000 people for marijuana possession(Balko).

I find it astonishing that even today, the War on Drugs is continuing to have major impacts on society. With police trying to meet quotas and very serious crimes like rape, murder and burglary going under the radar, I find it shocking that more people are not aware of this. Why is this, I have to ask myself. Don't you wonder why some topics are covered by the media and not others? I think that the ideas presented by Alexander in The New Jim Crow are rarely discussed within social media because our government does not want this information to be publicized. As I included in my last blog, prisons have banned The New Jim Crow to keep their prisoners oblivious of the truth. Could our government be trying to keep the citizens of the United States oblivious as well? Although this is just a thought, I do not think it is too extreme to think that our government does not want the flaws of our justice system publicized.

                                                              Citations

Balko, Radley. “Driven By Drug War Incentives, Cops Target Pot Smokers, Brush Off Victims Of

Violent Crime.” The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 21 Nov. 2011.

Bump, Philip. “The Facts about Stop-and-Frisk in New York City.” The Washington Post, WP Company,

26 Sept. 2016,.

Goodnough, Abby. “Harvard Professor Jailed; Officer Is Accused of Bias.” The New York Times, The New
York Times, 20 July 2009.

My Very First Blog Ever!

An Entirely New Racial Caste System and its Transformation from Jim Crow...

March 18, 2018

Hello readers!

Welcome to my first blog ever to date. This is going to be quite the learning experience for me and I am hoping I don't fail miserably.

Let's get started!
The New Jim Crow written by Michelle Alexander, a highly acclaimed civil rights advocate, lawyer, and legal scholar, focuses on the birth of a new Jim Crow in society today. Yes, the very laws that enforced the segregation of blacks and whites. You may be wondering how this could be possible. In today's "progressive society", the society that just elected an African American president for two terms, has a set of laws that are suppressing and limiting our African American population? The answer is absolutely, however it is rarely discussed in this era of "colorblindness". It is almost never covered by the media and Alexander's book is the first of it's kind to openly explore the concept of mass incarceration.

It is our nation's criminal justice system. The policies are highly divisive and discriminating. Yet this is nothing new. This monster of a system has been growing for quite some time. Ever since the termination of slavery, upper-class whites have continued to ensure their economic and social position. By any means necessary, they continued to suppress and discriminate against the African American population and others. They succeeded within the Jim Crow laws, within "law and order rhetoric", and finally within mass incarceration that can be seen today.

Michelle Alexander is clearly a skilled and knowledgeable writer. Her writing style is primarily expository, however, I foresee her style of writing change as the book progresses. Nearing the end of her book, I expect to see more of her opinion displayed within her writing. Alexander effectively introduces this concept of mass incarceration in the first chapter. She clearly summarizes the entire history of black oppression in the United States and describes the birth of a new Jim Crow, which she has defined as "mass incarceration". One of the major appeals she utilizes is logos. Through the entirety of my recent read, she cited scholarly articles, books, speeches, statements from well-known individuals and more. Clear examples of logos can be seen throughout her novel. Some examples that certainly stood out to me were, "Ninety percent of those admitted for drug offenses in many states were black or Latino...(Alexander, 58)" and "In less than thirty years, the U.S. penal system exploded from around 300,000 to more than 2 million...(Alexander, 7). These statements caught me by surprise! She includes these shocking statements to catch readers like me off guard with surprising evidence. But not only to catch you off guard, but to also prove that she is knowledgeable and has done the research, thus strengthening her ethos. Alexander did an excellent job of combining ethos and logos, but I wondered about pathos. Alexander included little pathos, yet she was still able to pull on my heartstrings? She has a rare talent of  appealing to your emotions without actually appealing to your emotions! Strange, for sure, but Alexander certainly knows what she is doing.

Alexander wants to start a conversation. Her purpose of this novel is to open our eyes to the reality of America's criminal justice system. However, the first chapter is primarily to provide the reader with background information. She develops her argument by giving the readers insight of the history of our country and how mass incarceration came to be. Although Alexander does make many claims, she does support them with evidence. It is clear that she worked diligently to find sources to back up her statements, which can be seen in her thirty-three pages of sources and notes. Overall, this chapter began leading me to her main argument and preparing me for her main points in the chapters to come.

So far, I am really glad I chose this book. Not only has it piqued my interest, but many across the United States as well. In fact, according to an article from The New York Times, Why Are American Prisons So Afraid of This Book, Florida and North Carolina prisoners are restricted from this book. The New Jim Crow has become so influential, that it has been banned to keep those incarcerated oblivious. This simply recognizes how impactful and significant this book has become. Even though I have only read the first chapter, I expect that this book will continue to surprise me and open my eyes to what is really going on in my country.

Citations

Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “Why Are American Prisons So Afraid of This Book?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Jan. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/us/new-jim-crow-book-ban-prison.html.

The News Press. Michelle Alexander. Ohio, 2017.