As we near the end of the book and we see Michelle Alexander’s argument for mass incarceration becoming the newest form of Jim Crow America today, we are forced to think about plenty of things that we take for granted in our everyday lives. Her argument explains a whole lot about how people’s lives are post incarceration, and not just people, but black people. Their lives turn out similar to the lives of their predecessors under Jim Crow America and under slavery. “We’ve gone from plantations to penitentiaries”, she quotes Al Sharpton saying. There is this huge argument in America about people who make everything a race thing, I think the argument we should be having is about the people who don’t see that everything IS a race thing. For people to completely ignore that there is the factor of race to every single decision made by every human being every single day is ridiculous. We as humans have made the social decision to even make physical difference a real consideration, so to say that it’s something that doesn’t play a part in every decision is a spit in the face to those who have to deal with the negative effects of that choice every single day. Even worse, to have to argue with people who are affected negatively by this and try to show them how they are getting the short end of a really long stick is draining and almost pointless, as they are the children of both the disadvantaged and the system who wishes to keep them oppressed, and a sign of the system working effectively.
But to focus more on the final chapter of the book, “The Fire This Time”, the chapter questions the silence. It questions the refusal to talk about the issues beyond what the media wishes to look at, and it calls as a premonition if the silence continues on. She questions the judgment of racial justice advocates, she questions the judgment of those who exist in our society who are advocated for colorblindness, and she questions the judgment of those who succumb to the temptations and the easiness of colorblindness. She questions all of our judgments. What is it that we truly wish to solve by our indecisivity? Why can’t we not decide whether we want to help or not and if we have actually made that decision, why haven’t we decided to actually help? Clearly some of us have seen that the true issue is the evolution of racism into a different form. This metamorphosis has clearly blinded many people throughout the years, but to those of us who have seen it, to those of us who aren’t fooled by the system of oppression, when will we stand up and make a real change in the system? Michelle Alexander in her book has exposed to us the weaknesses of the system in which we live.
If you aren’t convinced by Michelle Alexander’s argument, what would you say is the real metamorphosized effort made by the oppressive system for the government for blacks in America? What can we do to effectively fight it? Would it be better if there was no colorblindness, if there was full acknowledgement and appreciation and respect for other peoples color, race, ethnicity and culture?
SOC320: Law, Society and Civil Rights 