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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
Thousands of people go to jail, go to prison, every year without even meeting with an attorney. — 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
