I say we haven't ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I do believe that something akin to a racial caste system is alive and well in America. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Mass incarceration is a massive system of racial and social control. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The cyclical rebirth of caste in America is a recurring racial nightmare. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
There is a system of racial and social control in communities of color across America. — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Seeing race is not the problem. Refusing to care for the people we see is the problem.” — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
It was because of race that we didnt care much what happened to those people and imagined the worst possible things about… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“These racialized narratives tend to confirm and reinforce the prevailing public consensus that we need not care about “those people”; they deserve… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The backlash against gains of African Americans in the Reconstruction Era was swift and severe. — 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… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
In my view, the most important lesson we can learn from Dr. King is not what he said at the March on… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
The problem that we face as civil rights lawyers and advocates is that its extremely difficult to prove race discrimination because the… — 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… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
I believe that Trayvon Martin's life might well have been spared if many of us who care about racial justice had raised… — 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
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
“Although it is common to think of Jim Crow as an explicitly race-based system, in fact a number of the key policies… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination - employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial… — 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
“History reveals that the seeds of the new system of control were planted well before the end of the Civil Rights Movement.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Parents and schoolteachers counsel black children that, if they ever hope to escape this system and avoid prison time, they must be… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“Despite claims that these radical policy changes were driven by fiscal conservatism...the reality is that government was not reducing the amount of… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The rhetoric of ‘law and order’ was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“This book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and that all those who care about social justice should… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The language of caste may well seem foreign or unfamiliar to some. Public discussions about racial caste in America are relatively rare.… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“To great effect, Reagan echoed white frustration in race-neutral terms through implicit racial appeals. His 'color-blind' rhetoric on crime, welfare, taxes, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The notion that racial caste systems are necessarily predicated on a desire to harm other racial groups, and that racial hostility is… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“It is fair to say that we have witnessed an evolution in the United States from a racial caste system based entirely… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“The general public typically traces the death of Jim Crow to Brown v. Board of Education, although the institution was showing signs… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
As a criminal you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height… — Michelle Alexander Copy Share Image
The extraordinary nature of individual black achievement in formerly white domain certainly does suggest that the old Jim Crow is dead, but… — 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