1.   Michelle Alexander claims that the main explanation of why so many people are sent to jail in the U.S. today is deeply wrong because she believes that sentencing policies are more one sided. This means that minorities are more likely to go to jail than “elite” races for the same crime. Furthermore she believes that racial disparities in drug related crimes and people sent to prison said more than enough about the government’s plan against people of color. Politicians started “using coded anti black rhetoric” to gain votes from whites who were also against segregation. They started promising to get rid of crime which really meant they’ll find a way to deal with people of color or minorities, finding a new Jim Crow. This is another point that Alexander made as to why it is wrong that so many people are sent to jail in the U.S. Top top it of, the United States is the country with the highest incarceration rates. 
  2.     Racial disparities in the rates of incarceration can not be explained by rates of drug crimes because essentially all races do drugs and acquire drugs the same. This means that the rates are unequal due to government policies and laws. Minorities get harsher punishment for the same drugs carried by other superior races. 
  3.     I understand the phrase “the American penal system has emerged as a system of social control unparalleled in world history” as meaning that the penal system is different from any other form of oppression we have faced. This may be because now racist language is very well hidden and things that aren’t obviously there go unseen or disregarded. Now policies are stronger and lean towards benefitting one race over the other in the American penal system. 

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