The Many Problems With Life After Incarceration

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 prison sentence for tax fraud, but had never been told that it

made her ineligible to vote. Many people will likely agree that this sentence seems very extreme, and

even unjust, which leads to why the argument of whether it was racially-related is so prominent.

Because of Crystal Mason's story, I found the section in the book about felons and voting especially

interesting. Alexander refers to the constricting laws regarding the issue as ". . .the modern-day

equivalent of poll taxes and literacy tests - 'colorblind' rules designed to make voting a practical

impossibility for a group defined largely by race" (159). These laws either completely prohibit a felon from voting, or create barricades that make it extremely difficult. One example that Alexander uses

to show this problem is the story of Clinton Drake, a Vietnam veteran who was arrested for

possession of marijuana, and several years later, arrested again. Upon the second arrest, he was

sentenced to five years in prison for having ". . about $10 worth of [marijuana] on him" (159). After

being released, he was not eligible to vote for the rest of his life until he paid $900 in court costs,

which, under his circumstances, was pretty much impossible. Alexander adds to the power of this

story by putting a quote from Drake himself, "I put my life on the line for this country. To me, not

voting is not right. . . . [m]y oldest son, he fought in the first Persian Gulf conflict. He was in the

Marines. This is my baby son over there right now. But I'm not able to vote. They say I owe $900 in

fines. To me, that's a poll tax. . . . .I was on the 1965 voting rights march from Selma. I was fifteen

years old. At eighteen, I was in Vietnam fighting for my country. And now? Unemployed and they

won't allow me to vote" (159-160). I found this section very compelling, because it also connects to

the issue of the minimum voting age, and the debate of whether people should be able to vote if they are fighting for their country, which was eventually decided in the 26th Amendment. It was important enough to Americans that a law was changed, but it is still a problem for many people, in situations

like Drake's.

This problem of underlying racism, however, goes deeper than simply being banned from voting.

Alexander writes about the constant fear African-Americans face after being arrested or imprisoned.

"[m]any on welfare were worried that any little thing they did to bring attention to themselves might put their food stamps at risk. Others had been told by parole and probation officers that they could not

vote, and although it was not true, they believed it, and the news spread like wildfire. . .[e]ven those who knew they were eligible to register worried that registering to vote would somehow attract

attention to them-perhaps land them back in jail" (160). Going back to the story of Crystal Mason thatI discussed in the beginning of this post, the problem operates in what is essentially a destructive

cycle. In the case of Mason, not being able to vote for a period of time upon being released from

prison ended up creating a situation where she may not ever be legally allowed to vote again. As she says herself in a news article, "I don't think I'll ever vote again. That's being honest. I'll never vote

again" (Flynn).

Except for the fact that Mason was in prison for tax fraud rather than drug-related

reasons, her real and current situation ties with everything that Alexander has addressed in

this book, especially in the recent section about felons voting. Of course, nobody can say for sure that Mason's sentence was due to racism. Maybe the fact that she's African-American is just a

coincidence. Maybe she would be receiving the exact same sentence if she was white. But we have no

way to know, so we must question whether or not race was a factor, which is unfortunately the logical

question to ask, given how much the legal system is often impacted by racism. The problem with this is simple - we shouldn't have to wonder about this, because it shouldn't even be a possibility. Yet it is one, a big one, and it would have been just as big had the case occurred a decade ago, or any time before The New Jim Crow was written, because our country, in many ways, has not moved forward in terms of complete racial equality. As I talked a little bit about in my last post, it is alarming that situations like this can be made extremely public, like Mason's case, yet nothing is done. I know that there has been a lot of controversy about it, and I have seen many people agreeing that Mason's sentence is way too harsh, yet no action has been taken. As a reader of The New Jim Crow, one thing that I hope to really take away is the idea that we need to create change, but the change isn't going to happen unless we make it happen. In other terms of tying my thoughts from this book to history, one specific quote really stood out to me this past week when reading Martin Luther King Jr's. Letter from Birmingham Jail - "We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people." I think this quote is extremely powerful and relevant in our current day and age, and I will continue to keep it in mind as I finish reading the book in the next week, and I hope you will too. I feel that Michelle Alexander's goal when writing this book was to stir up a movement, and create change. The relevance of this book to both historical and current events is upsetting, but it is also a sign that we are still in the process of creating change, and we cannot give up.

I will be talking a little bit more about these ideas in next week's post, which will sadly be my last :(. If you're still reading, thank you for coming along on this journey with me. I am looking forward to

reading the remainder of The New Jim Crow, and giving my overall takeaways from it next week.

I'll see you then!

Flynn, Meagan. “Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation.” The Washington Post, 30 Mar. 2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/30/texas-woman-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-voting-while-on-probation/?utm_term=.7eba322d2b70. Accessed 6 Apr. 2018.