The New Jim Crow And Ava Duvernay s Documentary 13th

As a legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, blatant racism is no longer viewed as acceptable social behavior. However, the absence of blatant individual racism cannot be equated to the absence of structural racial discrimination. With the Thirteenth Amendment preserving slavery as punishment in the prison system, criminality is being manipulated by the media to be associated with race. We see the full effects of the overrepresentation with War on Drugs legislation, which are policies that categorized drug use as a crime instead of health issue pushed forward by the Reagan administration. The master narrative of the criminality painted the legislation as colorblind, or nondiscriminatory, policies that will benefit all citizens and created†¦show more content†¦To dig deeper into this overrepresentation of black criminality, we have to look at the loophole in the Thirteenth Amendment, which allowed slavery as a form of punishment in the prison system. The policymakers recognized the opportunities to acquire forced labor through mass incarceration and made use of the perpetuating cycle of racial formation, where representations and the actions of the institution often reinforce each other. The structural institution, or the policymakers in this case, used overrepresentation of black criminality to racialize crime. The overrepresentation of racialized crime then validates the need of criminal laws and their unequal application across racial groups. In the end, the institution created the false representation that justifies its actions which further feed the representation. The vicious cycle introduced racial discrimination into the justice system and guided the process of mass incarceration. With criminality already tied closely to race, the War on Drugs legislation expanded the definition of crime to drug usages. As demonstrated in The New Jim Crow, a 1995 survey found that 95% of participants pictured an African American person when asked to picture a drug user, but in reality, only 15% of the drug users were African Americans. This survey showed us the extent to which media’s overrepresentation of blackShow MoreRelatedThe Epidemic Of Mass Incarceration Essay1880 Words   |  8 PagesUnited States. The problems of mass incarceration have been echoed far and wide, but it was not until recent years that the issue has been acknowledged, let alone fully addressed. Authors such as MK Asante and Bryan Stevenson, and filmmakers such as Ava Duvernay, have all discussed mass incarceration and its common threads such as the collapse of family structures, damage to mental, physical, and communal health, amongst other lasting impacts. Despite the commonalities, each artist takes on a differentRead MoreRacial Segregation And Popular Culture1676 Words   |  7 Pageswhite superiority and a racial hierarchy atmosphere in our society that both redefine African Americans identity and image in the culture. According to Danille Dirks and Jenni fer Mueller in the text, Racism and Popular Culture, they suggest that Jim Crow is an early type of popular racist stereotype of black people where laws are supported in the south around the 19th century to institutionalize discrimination towards blacks. Later, more disturbing terms that describe African American characteristicsRead MoreAnalysis Of The Book The Great Migration Essay1211 Words   |  5 PagesMigration, according to Black Past, â€Å"†¦was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960†¦to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York.† (Christensen). One large reason for the mass migration was the to escape the southern states’ poor economy in the south. After the end of slavery, the southern economy suffered drastically because slave plantations were the South’s mainRead MoreThe Movie Soul Food By George Tillma n Jr. Essay1535 Words   |  7 PagesMigration, according to Black Past, â€Å"†¦was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960†¦to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York.† (Christensen). One large reason for the mass migration was the to escape the southern states’ poor economy in the south. After the end of slavery, the southern economy suffered drastically because slave plantations were the South’s mainRead MoreMy Final Project1967 Words   |  8 Pagesstate in the U.S. as well as filling the gaps in numerous other academic spaces in U.S. history, black history and women’s history. In terms of thinking about the post-1960s/1970s historical shift, I would like to get deeper into understanding the U.S.’s involvement in the spreading of crack/cocaine into poor black and brown communities as part of way to fund their international operations while simultaneously creating political and social scapegoats domestically. For this, I would probably engage with