In Michelle Alexanders “The New Jim Crow” she discusses the problem the black community faces of not having fathers in kids’ lives. To start off she brings up a speech that President Barrack Obamas gave at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. Obama brings up the fact that in the African American culture there are way too many fathers missing from their families’ lives and how they are not taking over their responsibilities. Obama is asking for everyone to realize that the problem is real and is asking for people as a society to change the same story from continuously happening again. Although Alexander starts off with Obamas speech her intake on the problem is not the same. Shortly after presenting Obamas speech she brings up a critique
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She makes this her reason for believing that this is why children of color grow up without having both of their parents present in their lives. It is as if people make it seem like the fathers are gone because they are busy doing other things when it reality they are trapped in a cell for committing crimes that if a white person committed would be facing different sentences according to Alexander. She brings up how no one notices the downfall on “racial progress” and how as a society people only focus on those people of color like President Barrack Obama and Oprah Winfrey who do not face the hardship of finding employment in today’s world which then takes her back to the War on Drugs. Alexander describes the War on Drugs as “the initial construction of the new system required the expenditure of tremendous political initiative and resources” (740). She mentions that if you are a white person in the middle class you won’t know that the War on Drugs was even happening. If you are a high school or college student today you will not know the beginning of the War on Drugs and how it all began. Incarcerating minorities is now a normal thing that occurs very often so it is no longer surprising to see or hear about. This leads to Alexander beginning to ask …show more content…
They got tired of seeing whites put people of color down simply because of their skin tone. Alexander mentions Chicago as a place of occurrence of racism but not so long ago the streets of Los Angeles created a riot for the same reason. When you have gangs coming together and fighting against something that is when it is something major. Just because we now have minorities in the system does not mean that racism is gone because up until this day we see innocent people die every day simply because someone could not stand the fact that their skin was darker than their
She makes this her reason for believing that this is why children of color grow up without having both of their parents present in their lives. It is as if people make it seem like the fathers are gone because they are busy doing other things when it reality they are trapped in a cell for committing crimes that if a white person committed would be facing different sentences according to Alexander. She brings up how no one notices the downfall on “racial progress” and how as a society people only focus on those people of color like President Barrack Obama and Oprah Winfrey who do not face the hardship of finding employment in today’s world which then takes her back to the War on Drugs. Alexander describes the War on Drugs as “the initial construction of the new system required the expenditure of tremendous political initiative and resources” (740). She mentions that if you are a white person in the middle class you won’t know that the War on Drugs was even happening. If you are a high school or college student today you will not know the beginning of the War on Drugs and how it all began. Incarcerating minorities is now a normal thing that occurs very often so it is no longer surprising to see or hear about. This leads to Alexander beginning to ask …show more content…
They got tired of seeing whites put people of color down simply because of their skin tone. Alexander mentions Chicago as a place of occurrence of racism but not so long ago the streets of Los Angeles created a riot for the same reason. When you have gangs coming together and fighting against something that is when it is something major. Just because we now have minorities in the system does not mean that racism is gone because up until this day we see innocent people die every day simply because someone could not stand the fact that their skin was darker than their