In “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” written by Michelle Alexander, she talks about the issue of mass incarceration throughout the United States. She points out the legal discrimination felons are subject to, hence a second class citizen. Alexander sees the problem of the majority of the prison population are African American males. She states that the War On Drugs helped spike this mass incarceration, and had the intent to discriminate against African American males. Hence the name of “The New Jim Crow”, she found this to be the modern day Jim Crow laws which the criminal justice system is responsible for. Mass incarceration among the African American community is a problem, and this article provides the necessary information needed to convince the audience of the issues in our criminal justice system.
Alexander uses quite a few appeals of logic in her article to strengthen her argument. The evidence throughout this essay ranges from court cases to published studies and statistical data. A very large statistic that would boggle anyone’s mind is; the United States only has 312 million people, yet we make up 25% of the world’s prison population. Alexander uses a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of …show more content…
At the beginning of the essay, she starts off with the story of Jarvious Cotton, an African American male denied the right to vote because he is a felon. He is subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, and many other things. It goes through his family tree of the men who couldn’t vote because of restrictions during the era those men were in. They were all denied the basic freedoms. The use of this anecdote would make the audience feel sympathy for this man and for his family because of our bad criminal justice system and the treatment towards African American
Alexander uses quite a few appeals of logic in her article to strengthen her argument. The evidence throughout this essay ranges from court cases to published studies and statistical data. A very large statistic that would boggle anyone’s mind is; the United States only has 312 million people, yet we make up 25% of the world’s prison population. Alexander uses a survey conducted by the U.S. Department of …show more content…
At the beginning of the essay, she starts off with the story of Jarvious Cotton, an African American male denied the right to vote because he is a felon. He is subject to legalized discrimination in employment, housing, education, and many other things. It goes through his family tree of the men who couldn’t vote because of restrictions during the era those men were in. They were all denied the basic freedoms. The use of this anecdote would make the audience feel sympathy for this man and for his family because of our bad criminal justice system and the treatment towards African American