Michelle Alexander s The New Jim Crow - 1495 Words

Baker, Anderson, and Dorn (1992) talk â€Å"A Critical Thinking Approach† giving the readers six guidelines to follow when critically assessing any literary work, all of which can apply to Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. The first guideline is about how accessible is her work. Throughout the book, Alexander made her work as clear and concise as she possibly could by explaining certain points over again in a different chapter to make sure that the audience understands what she is trying to say. Any explanation given, whether it is her own thoughts or other evidence/data is thoroughly talked about and written in such a way that the readers can easily digest its meanings. The next guideline is Authenticity. Alexander†¦show more content†¦Alexander is very specific in her book and does not use many generalization. The generalizations that are used throughout her book are careful in the sense that they cover only the material she needed to make her point to t he audience. In her first chapter, Alexander tell the history of American slavery and Reconstruction Era, etc., which was generalized to help the readers understand where Michelle was coming from in her evidence that the Jim Crow still exists today. The fifth guideline is Expertise. Within her book, Michelle Alexander has stories from real people who have been through the process of the criminal justice system Jarvious Cotton and Drake are to name a couple. She also relies on the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was imprisoned, for speaking out about the discrimination and leading the nation into Civil Rights Era. By reading, King’s words and learning about the system from those who have been in it and the hardships mass incarceration causes, Michelle Alexander can giver her readers first hand accounts of the negative effects that come from today’s discrimination. The last guideline from Baker, Anderson, and Dorn, is Objectivity. Michelle Alexander is objective for much of the book through the history and parallels of today’s Jim Crow and the original laws; however there were areas where she became subjective mainly when she was talking about her personal journey to realizing that Jim Crow has yet to