The Issue of Racism in the Books Black Like Me and The New Jim Crow

Black Like Me and The Newjim Crow are two incredible but deeply disturbing books about the culture that I am from. America’s history in dealing with race is very poor, filled with slavery and discrimination of many forms. These books explore that history and the present state of the country without holding back. Black Like Me is the story of a reporter in late 1959 who decides to change the color of his skin to see if people treat him differently.

As this was the time period that the civil rights movement was beginning to gain steam and generate debate, this was an important and debated topic in America. Through the actions that the author, John Griffin, experienced and documented, the book showed the world, especially the American people, that separate but equal is a lie, and the United States in the 1950’s is not the utopia that many imagined it to be, especially in the south where society was ordered around white people and against African Americans.

The Newjim Crow deals with the racial issues in the present, not the distant past. It shows through statistics and facts that not all is well in this country. Just as there was discrimination and racial segregation in the past they are here today. The point that the author, Michelle Alexander, argues in the book is that as a response to the civil rights movement a criminal justice system was set up to keep African—Americans in check through mass incarceration and this relatively new phenomenon, is the tool of racial segregation and discrimination in the modern era.

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Some of the common threads between these two books/time periods is that throughout them both, the majority group makes the claim that there is no real discrimination present in America. The books also both show how a system of control built was around playing on the vulnerabilities of poor white people who are given slight privileges in order to keep them on the side of the established social order.

This creates a caste system in “the land of the free and the home of the brave.“ In Black Like Me there is an overt sense of oppression against African Americans. Racism and aggression are not hidden. There are many examples this throughout the book. The most obvious way this is shown is how there are only certain bathrooms and places to get water that African Americans are allowed to use, sometimes resulting in several mile walks for Griffin, past dozens of bathrooms that he would have been allowed to use if he was white. People also treated him differently when using the bus, as he and many other African Americans were not allowed to exit the bus to use the bathroom when white people were, and a lady selling him tickets was horrendously disrespectful to him and kind and courteous to a white couple moments later.

White women also refused to sit next to him while riding the bus. People also treated him like an animal while he was hitchhiking, inquiring about sexual issues and exploits without any hesitation, and generally behaving in an inexcusable manner. In The New Jim Crow the discrimination is more subtle, though it permeates society just as effectively and destroys lives just as quickly. The manipulation of policing and the criminal justice system disproportionally criminalized minority groups in order to take away their power and lock them into a predetermined position on the bottom of society. This is done on all levels of society, from the police officer on the street, who brings in money for the department by making drug-related arrests, to big name politicians who win votes by promising to be hard on drug crime. I think it’s worth noting though that the idea of comparing and contrasting race discrimination in the two periods seems very difficult to me as racial discrimination can take many, many different forms.

So while I can point to a few ways of discrimination being different, I think that the mindset is still the same; a lack of love for others and a feeling of superiority for not being part of that group. And it’s wrong no matter what the context. It’s still a sin. This discrimination did not just spontaneously appear as societal policies helped maintain the oppressive systems of race discrimination in very specific and different ways during each time period. In Black Like Me we can see how Jim Crow laws, and the idea of separate but equal, allowed for segregation of public schools, public places, public transportation, restrooms, restaurants, drinking fountains, and housing segregation as well asjob discrimination. This kept people separated and unable to work together or understand the issues that affect each other.

In The Newjim Crow discrimination comes in a much different form. Through the coopting poor white communities by using specific political phrasing playing on thoughts of superiority, coopting police departments by providing more funding for more drug-related arrests and encouraging them to prey on minority communities, and by putting in place court systems, both high and low, to strengthen the oppression of lower castes, including the Supreme Court in giving police more power and people less rights and the lower courts in encouraging plea bargaining and through unfair sentencing, the elites have created a nearly in visible and nigh impervious system. This system of mass incarceration was created and solidified over the twenty years following the civil rights movement, enabling many of the same issues that occurred through the 1950’s including housing segregation, job discrimination, and disenfranchisement to gain acceptance again as well as create a society-wide fear and distrust of black males and minorities.

Think that both of these books serve as complete eye open for their respective eras in regards to social justice issues and your ethical responsibilities toward promoting justice. The 1950’s are viewed in quite a nostalgic manner normally, and people often imply that the country was much better off morally than it is now, but Black Like Me illustrates incredibly clearly that this is not the case at all. It shows clearly the horror that Americans inflicted on their own people, horrors that were overlooked and ignored by the vast majority of the population and that I cannot overlook them if i want justice for others. The fact that the book generated outrage when it came out shows that the country was at least as bad, if not many times worse than what the author claims it is.

The author and his family had to flee to Mexico for safety. In America. Within living memory. To me that sounds more like the dark ages and shows that even in times of prosperity and peace we need to be vigilant in working forjustice. i think that The Newjim Crow shows that we don’t live in the colorblind utopia that we think that we do. It shows that right now there is a huge, hidden problem with our society that we are all at least partially responsible for and need to fix. And for this fix to be effective, we all need to be involved and working together, otherwise, a new system of racial oppression will form, just as the current one formed at the end of the civil rights movement, or the old Jim Crow formed after the reforms following the Civil War.

After working through the issues present in each book, I personally think that it is impossible to read The Newjim Crow and not be concerned. We are complicit in a system that uses systematic discrimination to lock a certain group of people out of power, restricts their freedoms and opportunities, and widely disenfranchises them. Until I read this book I thought that the system I was in was good, or at least neutral and colorblind. I closed my eyes and kept them closed until the book ripped them open. I know some whites who have been sucked up into the system in order to give it at least a facade of colorblindness. That is a problem too, and one that is not being dealt with at the moment.

It too needs to be fixed as lives are being destroyed and opportunities lost. I do not know exactly what to do about this system though, except to spread awareness of its existence and to lovingly support those who have been through the criminal justice personally and their family members. I am worried about how difficult that will be because of my own prejudices, the prejudices of people that I am close too, and societies views on ‘criminals’ as well. I would recommend both of these books to everyone that I know because as a culture we need to be made aware of our blind spots and our errors, and these two books do an incredible job of that.