The new Jim Crow

Racial discrimination is an interesting issue that grabbed my attention in the American Culture class. In fact, although this issue seems likely to fade away from American society, there is some unseen forces that keeps the “Jim Crow” system under the society. According to the famous Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow”, the war of drugs is the most influential factor that has undermined the equality and keep people of color in poverty.

The war of drugs has sent a lot of African-American people to jail and kept them in low-class population. Nowadays, people who are convicted as felons are deprived the voting right. In addition, the criminal history is used as a criteria to get a good job. Many black people are suffering from finding a good job and removed from political right. A statistic shows that nearly 90 percent of felons related to drugs is black people. Because of the war of drugs and the racial discrimination in the past, black people have been treated unfairly by police. Some research indicates that police is more tendency to call black people to stop and investigate than to white people. In fact, white people are likely to use drugs as the same rate as black people. Therefore, black people who involved in incarceration are unfairly isolated and lost their future, in term of job and standard of living. This is a true discrimination that is working in a vicious cycle. The one who involved in this cycle is hard to get back to the society.

In sum, it is undeniable that this kind of discrimination has been going on systematically in American society and widening the gab of the society. The future challenge is how American destroy the new Jim Crow and truly clean up racial discrimination.