JW AP Language Blog

Welcome back to my blog! In this post I'll be talking about some of the connections I have noticed between historical racial inequality, and the modern-day problem of mass incarceration, plus some other relevant instances that show how far our country still has to go. In my most recent reading of The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander, a point of focus was actually very specific similarities between the Jim Crow era and modern-day, which tied perfectly with my thoughts throughout this section. It is disheartening that so many modern-day connections and similarities came to mind without much thought, but it also gives light to the alarming reality that our country has a lot of problems regarding racism, especially in the legal system. Last week, a story surfaced on the news about an African-American woman in Texas who was sentenced to five years in prison for voting while on probation. The woman, Crystal Mason, had just recently been released from a former pris...

Hello again, and welcome back to my blog! Since I am now more than halfway through The New Jim Crow , by Michelle Alexander, I feel that I have a pretty good idea of the author develops the arguments in her writing. In the last section that I read, Alexander wrote about the horrific injustice that African-Americans are often subjected to in the United States legal system. Through her powerful use of rhetorical appeals and her vivid and emotional descriptions....she described the problem with so much strength that I, and I assume most other readers, were compelled to wonder, “why?”, and most importantly, “how?” How does this sort of thing go on with so little knowledge in our country, and when exposés like this book are released, why does it continue? In this section, like in the one I wrote about in my last post, Alexander addresses this in her main argument, through a combination of real stories, facts, and statistics, which she then takes her own opinions from, and expresses them cl...

Welcome back to my blog! In my second reading of The New Jim Crow , I paid especially close attention to how the author utilizes rhetorical strategies in her writing. This section focused mainly on providing the reader with information regarding how the problem of mass incarceration of African-Americans fell upon America, and how it continues to this day. The use of emotional appeals was very strong throughout this section of the book. One way the author Michelle Alexander chose to utilize these appeals was through the use of both real-life and theoretical examples. A major argument that Alexander covered in this reading was the idea that African-Americans caught in the criminal justice system are often imposed with strikingly harsh sentences for relatively minor offenses. Alexander cites several Supreme Court cases, including ones that ruled to uphold “. . .forty years of imprisonment for possession and an attempt to sell 9 ounces of marijuana” (pg. 90), and “a sentence...

Hello, and welcome to my blog! This is the first of several posts, in which I will be writing about my thoughts while reading The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander. This book, as its title alludes to, examines the connections and similarities between racial tensions in the United States during the civil rights era, and in modern day. Although I am still only on chapter one, I have already begun to develop a sense of where this book is going stylistically, and so far I am enjoying it. Because this book is nonfiction and addresses a heavy topic, it is easy for it to become a tedious read at times. However, I have noticed that the author, Michelle Alexander, finds ways to keep the reader engaged. The section that I have read so far mostly focuses on the history of unequal treatment towards African-Americans, and how narrow-minded Americans have continuously found ways to alter and update laws that create a racial hierarchy in the United States. As mentioned earlier, Alexander...