The Origins of Jim Crow Laws
The name "Jim Crow" was coined and first used to mock the black man. The idea of white supremacy, according to which white people detested the black population, was the foundation of Jim Crow laws. Racism was appealing to white people because they believed that black people threatened their employment, neighborhoods, and lives in general. To win over fellow prejudiced whites, political leaders demoralized the black community. The media also participated in the plot to portray black people as villains. The media reported in the newspapers at the time that all crimes involved black individuals. However, such information were made up, bias and meant to feed the white readers lies. The Louisiana General Assembly passed the law that blacks could not ride in the same railroad as whites, a case challenging the law reached the Supreme Court. The court upholding the law claimed that the facilities for blacks and white should remain separate but equal.
Impact of Jim Crow Laws
Jim Crow laws affected every aspect of the black lives such as schools, orphanages, colleges, hospitals and even prisons. For instance, black and white textile employees could not work in the same room or use the same door. Many industries, disregarded employing black laborers and even workers union had ruled in place to ensure that they were exclusive to whites only. Different phone booths and parks were set up for the blacks and whites all due to the Jim Crow laws passed by courts throughout the states of America. A Jim Crow curfew made it mandatory that no black was allowed in the streets at 10 pm while various joints and clubs had signs on their doors that directed which race could enter their premises. All these methods of racial segregation demeaned the black community and looking at the modern times the effects still. Consequently, the effects of the Jim Crow laws have translated to the modern American system.
Modern Manifestations of Racism
Generally, communities consisting majorly of people of color to find a high rate of black males shuttled into prison. They are branded felons and criminals for seemingly minor crimes that are nonviolent when released the black man receives a relegation to a second class status. The very rights that the blacks were fighting for in the civil rights movement were meaningless. The right to vote, serve on juries, the right to be free of discrimination and even to receive public benefits are all stripped away as long as you are a felon. The old ways of discrimination forms that were apparently left behind by the Jim Crow era are legal again once a black is a criminal in the eyes of the law.
Contemporary Racial Issues
According to Danielson (2013), segregation very much exists in this present times no matter how watered down it may seem. The new millennium has shown a growing number of racial problems, with the example of Hurricane Katrina which portrayed the growing interception of race and poverty combined with the laxity of the federal government to respond to black lives suffering. The hostility the black residents of New Orleans faced led to their displacement, as the whites presented a strong antipathy towards the blacks. Assuming that by the voting in of a black president means that racism is over is presumptuous, as much as Democrats embraced the black votes not all are antiracism. It would also be wrong to label the continuation of racism in America a conservative phenomenon as it goes deeper than just for the conservatives.
Bibliography
Hagginbotham, F. Michael. Ghosts of Jim Crow: Ending Racism in Post-Racial America. New
York: NYU Press, 2013.
Danielson, Chris. The Color of Politics: Racism in the American Political Arena Today.
Califonia: ABC-CLIO, 2013.
