In the war on drugs, state and state law enforcement agencies have been rewarded in cash by the federal government - through… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The same kinds of stereotypes and hunches that George Zimmerman used when deciding that, you know, Trayvon Martin seemed like a threat… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“At the time the drug war was declared, illegal drug use and abuse was not a pressing concern in most communities. The… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Law enforcement in the United States, thanks largely to the war on drugs; routinely targets people of color often living in ghetto… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Many people don't realize that financial incentives have been built into the drug war that guarantee that law enforcement will continue to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Yet far from putting any meaningful constraints on law enforcement in this war, the U.S. Supreme Court has given the police license… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“As if the free military equipment, training, and cash grants were not enough, the Reagan administration provided law enforcement with yet another… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“As law enforcement budgets exploded, so did prison and jail populations. In 1991, the Sentencing Project reported that the number of people… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The resistance within law enforcement to the drug war created something of a dilemma for the Reagan administration. In order for the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
To make matters worse, federal drug forfeiture laws allow state and local law enforcement agencies to keep, for their own use, up… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The temptation is to insist that black men 'choose' to be criminals; the system does not make them criminals, at least not… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The rhetoric of ‘law and order’ was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The process occurs in two stages. The first step is to grant law enforcement officials extraordinary discretion regarding whom to stop, search,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“people. Police usually release the innocent on the street—often without a ticket, citation, or even an apology—so their stories are rarely heard… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't get that… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and Latinos as… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning of race… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“Felon disenfranchisement laws have been more effective in eliminating black voters in the age of mass incarceration than they were under Jim Crow…These figures… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“That was King’s dream—a society that is capable of seeing each of us, as we are, with love. That is a goal worth fighting… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
Activists take the risks, while advocates are professional tinkerers with the system. What's necessary is for those who are advocates to support those who… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“Civil rights protests were frequently depicted as criminal rather than political in nature, and federal courts were accused of excessive “lenience” toward lawlessness, thereby… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
If we continue to tell ourselves the popular myths about racial progress or, worse yet, if we say to ourselves that the problem of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to address the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“[T]he slave went free; stood a brief moment in the sun; then moved back again toward slavery. —W.E.B Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
If you take into account prisoners, a large majority of African American men in some urban areas, like Chicago, have been labeled felons for… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
“A new civil rights movement cannot be organized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to address meaningfully the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
The rules and reasons the political system employs to enforce status relations of any kind, including racial hierarchy, evolve and change as they are… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share
