Reference no: EM133303004

Assignment: Write a reading response paper discussing the rise of mass incarceration in the US

In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander argues, "The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had abolished slavery but allowed one major exception: slavery remained appropriate as punishment for a crime" (31). In the documentary 13th, Jelani Cobb Links to an external site., a professor at Columbia Journalism School, uses the phrase the "13th Amendment loophole" to refer to this exception clause of the amendment (3:28-3:32). Alexander writes that in the decades following the passing of the amendment, "The criminal justice system was strategically employed to force African Americans back into a system of extreme repression and control, a tactic that would continue to prove successful for generations to come. Even as convict leasing faded away, strategic forms of exploitation and repression emerged anew" (32).

Question: First watch 13th Links to an external site.and review the assigned pages from The New Jim Crow. address the following questions:

1. According to Michelle Alexander and the documentary 13th, what role has the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution played in the rise of mass incarceration in the US?
2. Alexander argues in The New Jim Crow that the attempts of "white elites" and politicians in the US "to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans" helped give rise to systems of "racialized social control," like race-based slavery, Jim Crow, and mass incarceration (34-35). After considering the evidence Alexander uses to support her claims, do you find this argument persuasive? Why or why not?
3. Finally, do you agree with the claim in the documentary 13th that the media's negative representation of people of color in news shows and shows like Cops and through the use of terms like "super predator" (see 28:33) has helped justify and normalize high rates of mass incarceration among communities of color? Explain .