“The state of Mississippi eventually moved from hiring convict labor to organizing its own convict labor camp, known as Parchman Farm. It… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The fact that some African Americans have experienced great success in recent years does not mean that something akin to a racial… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Within five years, the effects of the civil rights revolution were undeniable. Between 1964 and 1969, the percentage of African American adults… — 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
In many large urban areas, the majority of working age African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Globalization and deindustrialization affected workers of all colors but hit African Americans particularly hard. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The radical philosophy offered, for many African Americans, the most promise. It was predicated on a searing critique of large corporations, particularly… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“It is not possible to write a relatively short book that explores all aspects of the phenomenon of mass incarceration and its… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Merely reducing sentence length, by itself, does not disturb the basic architecture of the New Jim Crow. So long as large numbers… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically… — 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
“Any notion that drug use among blacks is more severe or dangerous is belied by the data; white youth have about three… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The criminal justice system was strategically employed to force African Americans back into a system of extreme repression and control, a tactic… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“And despite the unprecedented levels of incarceration in the African American community, the civil rights community is oddly quiet.” — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against… — 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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
We cannot 'fix' the police without a revolution of values and radical change to the basic structure of our society. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
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 Image
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 Image
“[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 Image
