If you ask for good schools, you aren't likely to get them. If you ask for jobs or economic investment, you won't… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
What we're dealing with is institutional, and unless systems are put into place that will ensure accountability, we can expect racially biased… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In this era of mass incarceration, the police shouldn't be trusted any more than any other witness, perhaps less so. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Yet far from putting any meaningful constraints on law enforcement in this war, the U.S. Supreme Court has given the police license… — 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
Exposing police lying is difficult largely because it is rare for the police to admit their own lies or to acknowledge the… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I have spent years representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The U.S. Supreme Court has eviscerated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, giving the police license to sweep communities, to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Kids are growing up in communities in which they see their loved ones cycling in and out of prison and in which… — 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
Almost no one refuses the police when confronted on the street or in a train or plane or train station. When you're… — 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
Black men in ghetto communities (and many who live in middle class communities) are targeted by the police at early ages, often… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
When young black men reach a certain age - whether or not there is incarceration in their families - they themselves are… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Our nation has slashed budgets for education, job training, economic development, and drug treatment while investing billions in prisons and militarized police.… — 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
