Racism Quotes by Michelle Alexander

We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it

— Michelle Alexander

I do believe that something akin to a racial caste system is alive and well in America.

— Michelle Alexander

I say we haven't ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

— Michelle Alexander

Slavery ended, but the idea of race lived on.

— Michelle Alexander

Mass incarceration is a massive system of racial and social control.

— Michelle Alexander

There is a system of racial and social control in communities of color across America.

— Michelle Alexander

“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem.”

— Michelle Alexander

The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare.

— Michelle Alexander

“We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along…

— Michelle Alexander

In the 'era of colorblindness,' there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we, as a nation, have 'moved…

— Michelle Alexander

The backlash against gains of African Americans in the Reconstruction Era was swift and severe.

— Michelle Alexander

It was because of race that we didnt care much what happened to those people and imagined the worst possible things about…

— Michelle Alexander

“These racialized narratives tend to confirm and reinforce the prevailing public consensus that we need not care about “those people”; they deserve…

— Michelle Alexander

The uncomfortable reality we must face is that California, like the nation as a whole, has treated generations of African Americans and…

— Michelle Alexander

Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die…

— Michelle Alexander

The problem that we face as civil rights lawyers and advocates is that its extremely difficult to prove race discrimination because the…

— Michelle Alexander

I believe the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a very large swath of the American population, really wants to imagine that…

— Michelle Alexander

In my view, the most important lesson we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on…

— Michelle Alexander

I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in…

— Michelle Alexander

We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In…

— Michelle Alexander

The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on…

— Michelle Alexander

The extraordinary nature of individual black achievement in formerly white domain certainly does suggest that the old Jim Crow is dead, but…

— Michelle Alexander

“Despite claims that these radical policy changes were driven by fiscal conservatism...the reality is that government was not reducing the amount of…

— Michelle Alexander

More than 2 million people found themselves behind bars at the turn of the twenty-first century, and millions more were relegated to…

— Michelle Alexander

“Parents and schoolteachers counsel black children that, if they ever hope to escape this system and avoid prison time, they must be…

— Michelle Alexander

“History reveals that the seeds of the new system of control were planted well before the end of the Civil Rights Movement.…

— Michelle Alexander

I think this mythology - that we're all beyond race, of course our police officers aren't racist, of course our politicians don't…

— Michelle Alexander

Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial…

— Michelle Alexander

“Although it is common to think of Jim Crow as an explicitly race-based system, in fact a number of the key policies…

— Michelle Alexander

When young black men reach a certain age - whether or not there is incarceration in their families - they themselves are…

— Michelle Alexander

“The notion that racial caste systems are necessarily predicated on a desire to harm other racial groups, and that racial hostility is…

— Michelle Alexander

“To great effect, Reagan echoed white frustration in race-neutral terms through implicit racial appeals. His 'color-blind' rhetoric on crime, welfare, taxes, and…

— Michelle Alexander

“The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare.…

— Michelle Alexander

“This book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and that all those who care about social justice should…

— Michelle Alexander

“The rhetoric of ‘law and order’ was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to…

— Michelle Alexander

“The War on Drugs proved popular among key white voters, particularly whites who remained resentful of black progress, civil rights enforcement, and…

— Michelle Alexander

“Segregation laws were proposed as part of a deliberate effort to drive a wedge between poor whites and African Americans. These discriminatory…

— Michelle Alexander

“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose…

— Michelle Alexander

As a criminal you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height…

— Michelle Alexander

I believe that Trayvon Martin's life might well have been spared if many of us who care about racial justice had raised…

— Michelle Alexander