We have now spent 1 trillion dollars waging the drug war since it began. A trillion. Those funds could have been used… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The vastly different sentences afforded drunk drivers and drug offenders tells us who is viewed as disposable - someone to be purged… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
For those who say that the war on drugs and the system of mass incarceration really isn't about race, I say there… — 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
In the 1990s - the period of the greatest escalation of the drug war - nearly 80 percent of the increase in… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Nothing has contributed more to the systematic mass incarceration of people of color in the United States than the War on Drugs — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The fact that people of all colors have been ensnared by the drug war helps to preserve the system as a whole… — 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
Mandatory minimum sentences give no discretion to judges about the amount of time that the person should receive once a guilty verdict… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Most Americans violate drug laws in their lifetime, but the enemy in this war has been racially defined. Not by accident, the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Of course in this age of colorblindness, a time when we have supposedly moved "beyond race," we as a nation would feel… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Plenty of drug dealing does happen in the 'hood, but it happens everywhere else in America as well. In fact, some studies… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The bigger picture is that over the last 30 years, we have spent $1 trillion waging a drug war that has failed… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Drunk driving contains a far greater risk of violent death than the use or sale of illegal drugs, the societal response to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Now that's hard for many people to believe, given that the media image of a drug dealer is a black kid standing… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The war on drugs has been the engine of mass incarceration. Drug convictions alone constituted about two-thirds of the increase in the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
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
People charged with drug offenses, though, are typically poor people of color. They are routinely charged with felonies and sent to prison. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
If the drug war was waged in those communities it would spark such outrage that the war would end overnight. This literal… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The wave of punitiveness that washed over the United States with the rise of the drug war and the get tough movement… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
By waging the drug war and "getting tough" almost exclusively in the 'hood, we've managed to create a vast new racial undercaste… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The system functioned relatively automatically, and the prevailing system of racial meanings, identities, and ideologies already seemed natural. Ninety percent of those… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, offered whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Discrimination in public benefits is also perfectly legal. Under federal law, people convicted of drug felonies are deemed ineligible even for food… — 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
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
