Chapter 6- The New Jim Crow

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?

King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail

This reading I found one of the most interesting. This letter truly showed Martin Luther King Jr’s amazing diction and his verbal capabilities. He was so eloquent in explaining to the other clergymen why his presence was necessary in Birmingham, Alabama and even why he was willing to go to jail for his cause. “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, he says very early in the passage. He goes through a list of troubles that the people in Birmingham had been going through and even attempts to tug at the clergymen’s sense of goodwill and justice, urging them to not only stop judging his decision, but even indirectly invite them to join him. He also shows his political prowess explaining the thought process that went into the timing and intensity of their demonstrations. He was targeting more than just a cause for awareness, but also an economic stand, as well as a political one. King goes through the steps he took leading to the demonstrations that deemed them necessary. He explains the four steps to a basic nonviolent campaign: collection of the facts, negotiation, self-purification, and direct action. At the point of him writing this letter he was very clearly receiving a huge number of people attempting to deter him from his path. The facts were that Birmingham was one of the most racially segregated and brutal to blacks in the whole nation. There was very little to solve injustices that occurred against blacks and there were even preventative measures that disallowed them to be served by the justice system set up to help everyone. He talked about the negotiations with the economics leaders of the community. In an attempt to equalize the community he addressed small steps they could take in making the area less segregated, such as taking down demeaning and segregating signs. Those negotiations failed and so he was urged to the next step of self-purification. They began to ask themselves necessary questions when attempting a nonviolent protest: “Would they be able to be attacked without attacking back?”, “Will they go through whatever they had to in order to achieve their goals, even go to jail?”. After they took command of their resolve and fully realized and accepted what it was they were willing to do for their cause, they timed their demonstrations perfectly, to when it would have the heaviest impact. Then he explained why the direct action was necessary. He addresses all the questions that he had to. They riddle him with questions of ‘why this and not that’, ‘why not wait’. He explains in a very non aggressive and thorough tone that these steps were necessary to influence change in the system. Waiting would no longer be acceptable, watching your brothers and sisters be attacked, discriminated and even killed can take its toll on a person and there is a limit to where one can no longer wait, and action must be taken. He makes heavy comparisons between the issue of blacks with other genocidal world acts such as Hitler and his Third Reich’s policies for what justice is and what is legal and illegal. He even uses religion to pacify those who opposed him, explaining that even in the bible to inflict change of an oppressed people ‘extremists’, as they were referring to him as, were always important such as Paul, Amos, and even Jesus Christ himself. Martin Luther King Jr. even addressed the white powers that be, and hoped that they could see the reason in his argument and do something to inflict change before heavier consequences could be felt. King proves himself more than just a worthy adversary. He proves himself to be a strong political actor and strategist. He shows the logic behind his actions, and provides counter-arguments to his own argument. He does so with the same resolve of his patience and non-violent protests in Birmingham and he includes an answer for everyone who might have read his letter while imprisoned by an unjust system. He is truly the epitome of an American hero, not only for blacks, but he also serves as an example for any one group being oppressed by another.

I ask you my fellow classmates, what other oppressed groups today do you think could successfully use King’s methods to achieve their equality necessities?