Medium Post #3
Before engaging in this material, I felt comfortable with the amount of knowledge I had on the discrimination and the ugly reality that black Americans, including men and women, have to face. I know their opportunities are limited, the are fighting but no where close to equality and have been the subject of discrimination and hate for far too long. I’ve been taught about the Civil Rights Movement as well as the current reality of minorities in America throughout my educational career, namely high school.
I was absolutely astonished at “The New Jim Crow” reading. I had no idea how intentional and systematic the racism in this country really is. Groups like the CIA and several presidents have made proactive efforts, like deceiving the public about the truth about the War on Drugs, to marginalize minorities, mainly black men. I knew black Americans and black Americans in poor socioeconomic states were targeted by the police and more often thrown in custody than white Americans, but I didn’t know the significance that it played in their lives. “Once you’re a labeled felon, the old forms of discrimination — employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits and exclusion from jury duty — are suddenly legal.” (The New Jim Crow 2). It seems apparent now that this is intentional. The government and privately owned prisons have to fill a minimum capacity quota and they hang around poor areas that are mostly black populated and arrest black Americans for ticky-tacky drug charges. (They are actually making money by throwing people in jail!) Then, because of the systematic discrimination laws in place in this country, they are doomed. They have almost no ability to move up economically or socially because they are stripped of all their rights. As the article went on, I found myself agreeing more and more with the author that these are the new Jim Crow Laws. I don’t understand how people, especially people with enough power in the government, could deceive the general public so willingly just to marginalize a group of people who are so clearly not inferior to anyone else. It makes me sick to think about.
Similarly, the video of the numerous injustices done to black women in the school systems along with the commentary was very awakening to me. There were several times during the video where I couldn’t even fathom what was being done to these girls, and most of them were so young! Aside from the ridiculous claims of minority inferiority, how can someone do something so atrocious to a child? My hometown is a wealthy, predominantly white town and despite the fact that we have a number or minority of students in our schools, I have never seen anything remotely close to this. To watch these girls suffer like they had to suffer for no fault of their own depicts the current state of our country: if you’re not a wealthy white male you will be discriminated against. And although I know how ingrained these views are in our government, daily lives, societal norms, entertainment, essentially every facet of life, we must go against the grain. We need a revolution in all aspects of our lives to create real, concrete change. These materials continue to show me how far we have to go, how unreasonable and oblivious some people continue to be and the severity of racism in our divided country.
