Racism And Violence

Racism and Violence in the United States The United States has always been a country that is culturally diverse. Regardless of the diversity the U.S has discriminated groups of people that are not recognized as “White”. Since the establishment of the U.S. there has been discrimination of minorities. On of the earliest examples can be seen in the year 1882 when “the Anti-Chinese sentiment in California lead to the federal Chinese Exclusion Act which suspended immigration from the East” as mentioned in TIME website. Then in 1883 rituals of Native Americans were declared as offensive and punished by jail sentences up to thirty years. Not long after that in 1890, soldiers massacred more than 150 indigenous people. In 1915 “the Ku Klux Klan re-emerges …show more content…
Alexander discusses the things that can be taken away from an offender like “federally-funded health and welfare benefits, food stamps, public housing, and federal educational assistance.” (Alexander 143) Most people think if a person gets out of prison their lives will automatically be better and their time in prison is the just the right punishment for their crime but it is entirely the opposite. In her subchapter “No place like home” Alexander mentions the cruel reality convicted felons face after coming out of prisons, the denial of public …show more content…
When they try to apply for Section 8 they are denied the privilege they once had. Without a place to live in the court system takes away their children, leaves them homeless and forces them to return to prison. Instead of helping out the once imprisoned people it appears that the government wants all convicted felons to be disconnected from society. The movie When Will the Punishment End talks about a story of a mother who lost her three children and tries to recuperate them after getting gout of prison. In order for her to get her children back she has to find a place to live in and a job. Another woman that is introduced in the film is Maribel Bermudez, who is trying to rebuild her life after being incarcerated. Like Alexander, Bermudez explains that getting a job is hard because at the moment when a person is filling out a job application there is a box that has to be checked for people who have committed a felony. Like said in the documentary by Monica Stel, the government is disconnecting people in every way possible and then they are putting them back out there and expecting them to reconnect. People that just got out of prison are expected to get back in track with their life’s when they are denied the minimum help a citizen is provided