Race Quotes by Michelle Alexander

Slavery ended, but the idea of race lived on.

— Michelle Alexander

“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem.”

— Michelle Alexander

A massive new penal system has emerged in the past few decades - a penal system unprecedented in world history. It is…

— Michelle Alexander

It was because of race that we didnt care much what happened to those people and imagined the worst possible things about…

— Michelle Alexander

In the 'era of colorblindness,' there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we, as a nation, have 'moved…

— Michelle Alexander

If the drug war was waged in those communities it would spark such outrage that the war would end overnight. This literal…

— Michelle Alexander

In 2004, there were more black men disenfranchised than in 1870 - the year the 15th Amendment was ratified, prohibiting laws that…

— Michelle Alexander

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

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

We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In…

— Michelle Alexander

I believe the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as a very large swath of the American population, really wants to imagine that…

— Michelle Alexander

Voting rights expert and legal scholar Pam Karlan reports that as of 2004, there were more black men disenfranchised than in 1870,…

— Michelle Alexander

Like Jim Crow (and slavery), mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively…

— Michelle Alexander

A new race-neutral language was developed for appealing to old racist sentiments, a language accompanied by a political movement that succeeded in…

— Michelle Alexander

“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning…

— Michelle Alexander

The system functioned relatively automatically, and the prevailing system of racial meanings, identities, and ideologies already seemed natural. Ninety percent of those…

— Michelle Alexander

Of course in this age of colorblindness, a time when we have supposedly moved "beyond race," we as a nation would feel…

— Michelle Alexander

When young black men reach a certain age - whether or not there is incarceration in their families - they themselves are…

— Michelle Alexander

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

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

“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem. The fact that the meaning…

— Michelle Alexander

“The notion that a vast gulf exists between "criminals" and those of us who have never served time in prison is a…

— Michelle Alexander

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance…

— Michelle Alexander

What has changed since the collapse of Jim Crow has less to do with the basic structure of our society than with…

— Michelle Alexander