If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The mass incarceration of poor people of color, particularly black men, has emerged as a new caste system, one specifically designed to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
For the rest of your life you must check the box on employment applications asking the dreaded question: "Have you ever been… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think it's critically important that the people who have been most harmed by mass incarceration, by mass deportation, by neoliberalism, by… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
What are people released from prison expected to do? How are they expected to survive? Can't get a job, locked out of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
For reasons that have stunningly little to do with crime or crime rates, we, as a nation, have chosen to lock up… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We're living in a time when so many of the civil rights and social justice organizations are run by lawyers and policy… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Public housing projects as well as private landlords are free to deny housing to people with criminal records. In fact, you don't… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
It's important to teach students about the reality of the system, that it is in fact the case that they are being… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The mythology around colorblindness leads people to imagine that if poor kids of color are failing or getting locked up in large… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
For African American children, in particular, the odds are extremely high that they will have a parent or loved one, a relative,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We're foolish if we think we're going to end mass incarceration unless we are willing to deal with the reality that huge… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
My own view - and I'm very open to hearing other perspectives - is that this movement-building needs to begin at home,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We can't just assume that this resistance is going to produce the kinds of candidates or the kinds of parties that will… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Defenders of the system will counter by saying this drug war has been aimed at violent crime. But that is not the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In a sense, mass incarceration has emerged as a far more extreme form of physical and residential segregation than Jim Crow segregation.… — 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
It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't.… — 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
