In this country, we force millions of people - who are largely black and brown - into a permanent second-class status simply… — 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
Bill Clinton championed discriminatory laws against formerly incarcerated people that have kept millions of Americans locked in a cycle of poverty and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
More than 90 percent of criminal cases are never tried before a jury. Most people charged with crimes forfeit their constitutional rights… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Most people seem to assume that this dramatic surge in imprisonment was due to a corresponding surge in crime, particularly violent crime. — 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
Thousands of people plead guilty to crimes every year in the United States because they know that the odds of a jury's… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
People are swept into the criminal justice system - particularly in poor communities of color - at very early ages... typically for… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Millions of people are unable to vote due to felony convictions with the highest rates among black men. People in prison are… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The fate of millions of people—indeed the future of the black community itself—may depend on the willingness of those who care about… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Some prison officials are determined to keep the people they lock in cages as ignorant as possible about the racial, social, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Public housing officials are free to discriminate against you on the basis of criminal records, including arrest records. And so, you know,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Prosecutors frequently overcharge, load up charges on individual defendants, knowing that three strikes laws and harsh mandatory minimum sentences will force people… — 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
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
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
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 Copy Share Image
The so-called resistance is very broad and we don't agree on everything, but there's a moment of opportunity when people are paying… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think that we need to begin talking about what does it mean to create these safe spaces in our communities, to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance… — 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
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
Thousands of people go to jail, go to prison, every year without even meeting with an attorney. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
People on probation and parole are typically denied the right to vote, and in eleven states people are denied the right to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
What does this system seem designed to do? As I see it, it seems designed to send people right back to prison,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
It's not crime that makes us more punitive in the United States. It's the way we respond to crime and how we… — 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
I don't think I understood the full extent of the trauma experienced by people who churn through America's prisons until I began… — 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
I think it's important to encourage young people to tell their own stories and to speak openly about their own experiences with… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We must build a movement for education, not incarceration. A movement for jobs, not jails. A movement that will end all forms… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Of course, no one should be trapped in bad schools or bad neighborhoods. No one. But I think we need to be… — 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
The prison-industrial complex employs millions of people directly and indirectly. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, prison guards, construction companies that build prisons, police,… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In fact, in some countries there are actually voting drives conducted in prison! But here in the U.S., we seem to take… — 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
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
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
![“[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 For” quote by Michelle Alexander](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/fdb/michelle-alexander-750_time_t-he-slave-went-free-stood-a-brief-momen_96485.jpg)