One of the most important …show more content…
It targets African Americans and other people of color in order to create further racial divide. African slaves, after Nathaniel Bacon’s Rebellion, were dehumanized and made into inferior beings in order to show the difference between black people and white people. During Jim Crow harsh and discriminatory laws were put in place to keep the races from coming together. Now, through mass incarceration, African Americans along with other people of color are put under the unending stigma of the prison system in order to other them. Having a criminal record affects a person’s chances of landing a job, getting a loan, and access to other important things (Smith 472). The mass incarceration system does not end with serving time in prison; it is a lifelong sentence. Not being able to get a job or a house after being released from prison puts victims of mass incarceration on the edge of society. Without these things, former prisoners cannot assimilate back into world outside of prison. This others them in the same way slavery and Jim Crow othered black people. The mass incarceration system degrades people of color and excludes them from mainstream …show more content…
Throughout African American history “…whites have…always applied various forms of coercion ranging from …torture…lynching…slave codes, black codes, and Jim Crow laws” to police black people into obedience (Davenport, et al. 155). Policing black people in this violent manner allowed for their exploitation at the hands of white people. Any act of rebellion or protest would have been put to a stop through harsh, violent, and sometimes deadly tactics. The act of over policing African Americans in order to uphold the status quo is still in place today and has led to the issue of police brutality. Because police brutality is an issue that African Americans have faced for a long time, the #BlackLivesMatter movement arose not only as a response to recent events but as a stance against the years of injustice imposed upon black